


Gabriel Knight: Call of The Mara

by ziggbot



Category: Gabriel Knight
Genre: 90'S, Fantasy, Gen, Horror, Mystery, Mythology - Freeform, Supernatural Hunting, Whump, gabriel knight - Freeform, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziggbot/pseuds/ziggbot
Summary: WARNING: graphic content including violence, language, adult situations; blood, medical treatment, emetophobia(This story takes place between Sins of the Fathers and The Beast Within. I haven't played past GK1, and don't plan to, so please forgive any discrepancies!)A mysterious series of poisonings with supernatural elements brings Gabriel back to his hometown of New Orleans at the bequest of his old friend Franklin Mosely. As a special consultant for the investigation, Gabriel will uncover the deep plot to call upon a higher demon, who plans to tear the veil between worlds.





	1. The Call

It was dark, damp, and cold. It felt lifeless; frozen in time. His eyes struggled to focus on the shifting shadows of the night, but the sounds began to come in, and all too clearly. Screaming, shrieking -- it sounded like  _howling of the damned_. It was an outright chorus of pain and torment. The sounds sent shivers through his spine and into his stomach. As hard as he fought to stay where he was, his feet began to move forward -- one in front of the other -- toward a growing red glow. It looked like a beam of light, coming in through a torn heavy curtain.

As he neared, his hand reached out, trembling with fear and uncertainty. He felt the velvety surface of the curtain, and as he began to shift it, it moved on its own. It flew out of the way, revealing a twisted, gnarled yet somehow familiar landscape of dead trees, scorched land, and thousands upon thousands of bodies. Some moved, twitching and shifting uneasily like maggots. Others, more hauntingly, were still and lifeless. He could smell burning hair and flesh, and his stomach churned aggressively in reaction.

A shove from behind him sent him tumbling out into the thick of bodies, branches, and thorns below. He panicked to dig his way out from them. Covered in dirt, blood, and whatever else it could have been, he found solid ground, and dug his fingers into it deeply to pull himself free. Gasping, he felt ready to scream, but no noise would come from him, as if held forcefully in his throat. He lifted his head to look up at the pale red sky, and as he did, he saw a man running toward him.

He was a young man, dressed in flannels and denim past his own smears of blood and mud. He had short brown hair, and the boy's blue eyes were just as wide and terrified as his own. The young man spotted the pendant around his neck, and seemed to recognize it. "Help me! Help me,  _please!!_ " the young man cried out. The two reached out for each other, but before their hands could meet, a dark shadow pulled the younger man back. It split into many more shadows, resembling the shape of large dogs, which proceeded to...  _tear the young man apart_.

He felt his heart pounding in his chest, and though he tried to move, it seemed that now, he couldn't. He was forced to watch as the young man's blood ran red through the damp soil below him, and his gurgling screams slowly muted to nothing but dead silence. He saw the sky in the horizon turn a deeper red, like it absorbed the blood from the soil, itself. The snarls and barks of the dogs echoed and rattled in his ears, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and look away. Then he heard a new noise, this one sharp and clear. Ringing. An old phone ringing.

His eyes shot open as he sat up in his bed with a gasp. It was the dead of winter, yet he was drenched in sweat. It took him several seconds of blank staring into the dark of his bedroom to realize he was, in fact, awake. The ringing continued, pulling his mind more firmly back to reality.  _A dream... It was a dream._  He blinked tightly twice to clear his eyes, then reached to his side and picked up the princess phone on the end table. "Nnugh... H-hello?" he said through uneasy panting.

"Gabriel? Knight, is that you?" The voice was crackled, as if over long-distance, though familiar enough to recognize.

Knowing who it was only confused him further, then. "Mosely...?" he replied, groggy, and flicked on the lamp at his bedside.

"Yeah, it's me. Did I wake ya? Got no idea what time it is over there..."

Gabriel huffed a short, hallow laugh from his nose. "Don't worry about it. Better awake than sleepin' right now." He slipped his legs out from under the blanket, hoping to let them dry from their sweat by hanging them off the side of the bed. Damn, it was cold! He hugged himself with his free arm to conserve what warmth he had left. "What are you callin' for?"

Mosely paused on the line a bit, hesitant to answer fully, it seemed. "Well... I have a case here, and I think I might need your help."

" _My_  help?" Gabriel's brow furrowed. The last time the two had worked together was over half a year ago, now. Those days in New Orleans seemed so distant, like an old, aching memory. Mosely had seen just as much terror back then, too. He had to be real serious to call him, now. His tone was now more solemn and focused. "Mosely, what's going on? I thought you quit the force..."

"I did. Got recruited by the FBI."

Well, he could see why. Busting up a voodoo cartel controlling the highest names in New Orleans tended to get attention. He felt a little proud for his childhood friend. "Big time  _agent_  now, huh?"

"Yeah yeah,  _listen_... I got four cases of poisoning here in N.O., but some'a the victims are from different states. Makes it  _my_  case." Now that he was listening, he could hear the sounds of a hospital lobby in the background.

"They sent you back to N'warlins?" Gabriel rubbed his temple. The fog of his nightmare was still clouding his head, no matter how he tried to force it away.

"They said it's 'cause I have connections around here. Know some'a the good cops from the bad." Mosely turned again to the topic at hand. "Now  _three_  of the victims are dead. Third one just passed. I can't say much over the line, but I'm sure it's somethin' in...  _your field._ "

His field. He assumed Mosely meant his role as a  _shattenjäger_ , hunting the supernatural evils of the world. The connection to his dream started to make a little click in his head. "... Tell me, then," Gabriel asked with a hint of knowing tone in his voice, "Was that one a... a young guy? Brown hair? Blue eyes?"

Mosely was silent for a good while again, but when he answered at last, he said, "... Yeah. Yeah, he was. How did you--... Nevermind."

Gabriel felt ready to puke from the nerves that kicked up. He swallowed it back and rubbed his eyes. He had been called, and a shattenjäger  _never_  ignored a summons.  "... Alright. I'll... get on the next flight out." He sighed quietly to steady his breath.

"Knight,  _thank you_. I  _mean_  it."

"You'd  _better_. See you at Louis." He didn't wait for a 'goodbye'. He hung the phone up and instead clung to the edge of the bed. That boy's eyes were still fresh in his mind, giving his heart a good work out. He hadn't had a dream that vivid since...

The sound of the old wooden door to his bedroom creaking open caught his attention, and he turned his head to see Grace standing in the doorway, dressed in a warm set of fleece pajamas, with her black hair tied up in a bun. She looked concerned as she stepped in. "Gabe? What in the hell is going on? I could hear you screaming..."

Gabriel shook his head and stood up. The cold floor made him nearly dance to the rug by his closet. "I'm fine. Nightmare," he explained quite briefly. Grace looked at him, confused. "... I gotta go back to N'warlins." He hastily tossed on an old smoking jacket, inherited with the castle itself. It still smelt like aged smoke, like his great-uncle. Even having knowing him for such a short period of time, Gabriel had grown to miss him dearly once he was gone.

"Go back?" Grace walked further into the room, leaning over to get a better look at Gabriel's pale, shook-looking face. "Hold on. What's going on? What happened? Is your grandmother okay?"

"'Course she is," He dismissed. He even went to the length of knocking the wood of his closet door twice to clear the superstitious dread that thought came with. "This is somethin' different. It's  _hunting business._ "

Grace stood rod straight. He could understand why. She had been through just as much as he and Mosely had during her time there. Going back wasn't exactly an easy thing to digest. But what she said next was the surprising bit, "Okay, then I'm coming with you."

He shook his head, not looking away from his closet. "Grace, this ain't gonna be somethin' simple."

"So? It never is."

"It's  _different_  this time, Grace," Gabriel insisted, turning to her while grabbing wads of clothes from his closet to toss on his bed. "I think it's gonna be even worse." Something deep inside told him that, like an oncoming thunderstorm.

"And so  _what_ , I'm just supposed to sit here and wait and hope you come back?"

"Ideally."

Grace crossed her arms with a pout. "I don't think so. I can handle this, just like you can." When she got a sidelong stare from him, she corrected herself, "Okay,  _sure_! I might not be a  _schattenjäger_  like you, blood of dragons and all that, but I...  _Look_ , I can't just stay here alone, worrying."

"You won't be alone, you'll have Gerde." He kept his answers short while pulling a large suitcase out from the back wall of the closet. When he put it down on the bed and began to open it, Grace slammed her hand down to keep it closed. He looked up to her.

"If I have to buy my own damn ticket, or hell, if I have to  _swim_  there, I'll  _get_  there. The minute you leave, I'll follow." She stared him down, serious and grave. "Why not save yourself the trouble of making me more pissed and just let me come with you?"

"Grace..." Gabriel stood straight and took her shoulders into his hands, which were still slightly clammy. Thank God she was wearing a nightshirt, or she would have felt it. "I don't want you gettin' hurt. You nearly  _died_  last time."

"But I  _didn't!_ " she was quick to respond. "And it's because you and Mosely were there. We were all there together. I won't let you go alone."

Finally, looking into her dark brown eyes, he gave in, his hands slipping down and holding her hands. She looked down at them, noticing he was still shaking. "... Alright. But you'd better pack quick, and tell Gerde to make the arrangements." He kept his tone serious, somehow hoping that maybe she would decide against it at the last second.

Grace smiled faintly, nodding her head. "Will do,  _Mr. Knight._ " It was worth a shot. Her eyes hid complex emotions as she turned to leave. He watched he silently until finally dragging his thoughts back to packing.

It was going to be a  _long flight_.


	2. The Lady

He was in a different place, this time. Still cold and dark, but the wretched stench of bodies no longer permeated the air. In fact, he wasn't even sure he was  _anywhere_. There was nothing but pure black, and the only sound he heard was the faint sound of a woman's voice, humming a slow, unrecognizable tune. Out of the fog of black, she began to appear, fair-skinned with long brown curls. She was dressed in old, tattered, gauzy robes, colored a deep forest green, which matched her eyes. She was incredibly  _beautiful_ , and he had known some  _true_  beauties before his turn to hunting.

As she reached out to him, he leaned in, taken in by her calm and serene demeanor. She touched his jaw gently, like a gentle breeze. "Hunter of Shadows, banisher of night... You are on a quest of great peril, but one for you alone..." She lead him in close, holding him to her breast as a mother would to a child. He felt calm, at peace, near hypnotized by her grace. "For if the sixth servant of light dies, the veil shall ever be torn, and the Mara shall rule all."

And then, so suddenly, she was pulled away, and the horrible landscape returned with all its stench. She floated above him as he stood on the ground, smeared and dirty as he had been before. He hated being here again, and his stomach began its tumbles once more. Given the chance to look around once more, the familiar landscape became clear. It was Jackson Square, in  _ruin_. He could see the remnants of the shattered and destroyed St. Louis Cathedral past the gnarled hedges. Now, among the bodies, he could see faces he knew from the streets. Musicians, performers, and tourists alike were all there, representing a population from memory. "What is this?!" he finally spoke, "Why am I seeing this?!"

"This shall be reality should the veil be torn!" the woman spoke down to him piously, "This is the vision the Mara seeks to fulfill! Should the sixth servant of light die, She shall do this to all you see, Gabriel Knight!"

"No!" Gabriel said loud enough to wake himself, sitting up stiff in his seat. Grace was holding his shoulder, and a flight attendant behind her looked on in worry. He caught his breath, slowly realizing it had, once again, been a dream. This one felt harder to shake off. It clung to him like his sweaty shirt. He suddenly felt just a little embarrassed when he noticed all the eyes of other passengers on him.

He cleared his throat just as Grace asked him, "Are you okay? We've landed..."

"I'm... I'm fine." He closed his eyes tight and nodded his head. How could he even manage to hide it away? After a moment of thought, he requested, "Coffee... They got coffee on this thing?"

"I'll go get you cup, sir," the attendant said softly before vanishing behind the cabin curtain.

Gabriel steadied his breath with a few deep intakes, and Grace looked on with a knit brow. "This is what you go through? How do you ever get sleep?"

As the other passengers made their ways to the exit, Gabriel refused to lift his head or look their way. He was damn glad he had a window seat. He laughed breathily. "I'll let you know when  _I do_."

***

Mosely was waiting by his unmarked car outside the airport, drinking a cup of coffee when Gabriel and Grace emerged from the front doors. He walked across the street to meet them, tossing his luke warm coffee away in the street-side bin to be able to pull Gabriel into a hug. "Hey, pal. Been a while." His tone was as happy as it could be, given the circumstances. His hug was tight and firm; the way Mosely always hugged.

Gabriel gave a small, short hug back, patting Mosely on the shoulder. He was usually better at this hugging thing, but the nightmare still had him rattled. "'Bout half a year. Guess that's a while. Nice to see ya, Mostly." It was complicated, being back home. There were so many terrible memories tied to this place, along with the good ones. The two parted, and Mosely turned to give Grace a hug, as well. She returned it kindly, more relaxed to see him, now. Gabriel stuffed his free hand into his coat pocket. "Missed this kinda weather. It's all snow and wind in Germany."

"Oh, you're such a  _baby_  about the cold," Grace ribbed, fanning her neck to stave off heat. "I'm used to that.  _This?_   _This_  feels like an  _armpit_."

"I bet," Mosely said before gesturing to his car. "I know you might wanna get settled, but we've had another victim." They both turned to Mosely, each expressing sadness and stress in their own way. Grace showed it through a knit brow and frown. Gabriel showed it with a look of personal challenge and frustration. Those two were easier to show than the sadness and dread it brought him, in truth.

"You got a lot to fill us in on, anyway." Gabriel shrugged as they walked. Mosely opened the trunk of the car and tossed Gabriel's suitcase in. "Hey!" Gabriel half-seriously protested to the rough handling. He took note that Mosely handled Grace's bags far more gently. He shook his head with a smirk.

Grace smiled at Mosely for being so gentle with her things, then spotted a nice looking car past him once he stood straight. Gabriel followed her eyes to it. It was a blue Chevy Bel-Air, probably from the 60's with those fins. She watched it as it pulled away and onto the road. "I forgot how fancy the cars people drive around here are." In Germany, everything was economic. Tiny,  _tiny_  cars.

"Huh?" Mosely questioned, looking around. "You sure as hell can't be talkin' about  _my_  P.O.S. Damn FBI pays for all my travel, but  _damn_  are they tight about it." Grace shook her head and shrugged it off.

They shuffled into the car, Gabriel and Mosely in front, and Grace alone in the back seat. Mosely's radio chirped and crackled with activity, tuned to listen to the state police channel. He ignored it and pulled out of the airport lot. "Okay have a look," he began, pulling the fat case file from the glove box and handing it to Gabriel so he could leaf through the pages. He did it all while driving, then lit a cigarette with the car-lighter while steering with his knee. Gabriel  _hated_  it when he drove like that. He had a hog for this very reason. He tried to ignore it and read, instead.

The beginning of the overall case file was a list of the victims so far. The first was an elderly priest named Arthur Warren. His photo showed him as an aged black man, well styled and warm. He knew the name. He was a priest from New York. Well known in the occult community. He remembered some contacts saying he could preform exorcisms. The second was an older cajun woman, named Bethany Beaumont. She was a palm reader from Acadia Parish, and apparently was known for her accurate readings. She was visiting a friend in the French Quarter, Laura Bow-Dorian. The third victim's photo he recognized as the boy from his dream, and he was named Jeb Capes.

He was an-up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Kentucky, visiting friends and preparing to guest play for their tour, mainly through local bars. His family was worried this was an attempted suicide at first, apparently, as his music and life had always been on the darker side. He found the details of a 'struggling artist drawn to the darker material' too familiar to quite stomach the sight of his death from the nightmare. He flipped the page quickly. The forth victim was another out-of-towner by the name of Margo Crane, coming in from California. She was here as an avid traveler, wanting to take in the New Orleans sights, as well as take notes for her upcoming travel guide. She had no family to contact, as an orphan from one of the catholic churches in San Diego. The most recent victim was a young woman named Celine DeLane, and all that was written down beneath her photo was a family address, phone number, and an added note: 'INTERVIEW ASAP'

"All of the victims are fed a mix of herbs," Mosely began to elaborate, "We've identified them as Egyptian lotus, mugwort, and  _deadly nightshade_."

"That'll do a number..." Gabriel looked out the window at the streets to watch the city activity. "Why the mugwort or lotus, though?"

"We've found powderized Selenite and some sort of jasper in their stomach contents, as well."

" _Selenite_  and  _jasper_?" Grace leaned forward to ask, "How would they get  _that_  in their stomachs?"

"Mixed into somethin' they eat, I suppose." Mosely shrugged. "They all came in semi-conscious. Jeb kept talkin' about somethin' called 'the Mara'. Before local police could ask him anything else, though, he slipped into some kind of comatose state, just like the other two. Doesn't matter if their stomach's pumped or if they're given charcoal. Always happens. We can't wake them, but they have random fits. Sometimes they talk durin' em."

"What do they say?" Gabriel raised a brow as he turned to look back at Mosely.

"Sure would love it if I knew," the agent sighed out, "They talk in tongues, but it sounds like they're  _scared shitless._ Doctors say it might be aphasia brought on by the poisoning, but I think it's somethin' else." Gabriel fell quiet, and looked into the rear-view mirror at Grace, who looked back curiously. "Before he died, Jeb Capes, the boy I mentioned? He said somethin' real loud, like he was screaming for somethin'."

Gabriel had a good feeling that those screams were the ones for help he had heard in his dream, but until he knew more, he kept his mouth shut. "... What was the manner of death?"

"Full acute arrest. Everythin' just stopped. Same as the other two." Mosely explained while flicking his ash into the tray on the middle column. Well, at least his family wouldn't have to see what  _he did_. "They usually last about four days, just enough time for the nightshade to wear off. But  _get this_  -- doctors say the amount of nightshade isn't even deadly, just a  _real_  bad trip. So there's  _no way_  it's the toxins."

"What's the plan?" Gabriel finally asked, closing the file and passing it back to Grace.

"The most recent victim's name is Celine DeLane, a local gal. Some sorta 'energy healer'." Mosely didn't sound skeptical as much as simply confused and unknowing. "Her family is coming into the station to give us as much info 'bout her as we can get. Thought it might be a good idea to have ya listen in from the other room, since you know more 'bout any'a this than I do."

"Sounds like a start."

***

Gabriel was allowed into a room with a two-way mirror. Grace, who hadn't been allowed 'officially' on the case, remained outside. He could hear her feet tapping nervously on the floor on the other side of the door as he watched the interview.

"She's always been such a good girl. Never into trouble or anythin' like dat." Celine's mother, a well-aged, tan-skinned, blonde woman with a thick Yat accent, said earnestly. "We thawght she was gonna see her friends at the pawk. When she didn't come home... I hadda feelin' something was wrong. I cawled everywheh. When I heard she was inna hawspital, I rushed down."

"You say she was poisoned?" her father, whom Gabriel assumed was adoptive (since he was a dark-skinned man with a foreign accent), asked next.

Mosely nodded his head sadly. "Unfortunately, it seems like she's been the target of someone who's poisoning people all over town. We're still trying to find any connections. Now, what did you say she did for a living?"

"She'ssa touch healeh," the mother answered. "She's so good at it, too. Makes people feel like they've neveh been hurtin' in dah first place."

"What does that mean?"

"It's a form of energy direction therapy," the father said knowledgeably. "I learned it, myself, when I was traveling the world. I taught her when she was young, and, well... She really took to it. I think it healed her, too. Once she started doing it full time, she didn't have any problems sleeping." The father knit his brow and looked at the table in front of him.

"Problems sleeping?" Mosely asked. Gabriel hadn't notice it much before, but Mosely's questioning had gotten a lot better. He would have asked the same thing.

"Oh, she used to have such awful nightmehs. Kept her up awl night lawng." Her mother nodded. Gabriel felt a chilling relation to that. A connection was forming.

The father changed the topic subtly, "She only worked with clients in town, and never anyone sketchy. She keeps her nose clean."

Mosely didn't mind the topic change. "Do you know any of the clients? Could you give me any names?"

The father was the one to answer with, "There was... Bella, in the 9th Ward. She saw Cellie every week at least. And Maurine. She lives in the 3rd ward. Those are the main two. They pay her about three-hundred a visit." Gabriel half gawked at the paychecks. That must be some kinda  _good_  healing. The father was slipped a notepad by Mosely, and proceeded to write down the addresses.

"Thank you guys. Hopefully we'll be able to track this down. Do you mind if I send a couple boys over to look through her things?"

"Not at awl," the father agreed, trying to comfort his wife with a hug around the shoulders as he did.

Gabriel watched quietly as they shook hands and left the room, following out into the hallway. Grace stood up and was quick to ask, "So? Anything useful?"

"Some people to talk to for sure. And... some other things," Gabriel said, half-distracted as he watched Mosely escort the parents to the exit.

"Like what?"

"Nightmares," he answered. "She used to have nightmares."


	3. The Effects

Before they left the station to interview the clients of Celine DeLane, there were two difficult tasks to accomplish: Look at the effects of the victims, then look at their bodies. Effects, being the less difficult of the two to deal with, was what Gabriel decided to do first. Mosely brought Gabriel to the evidence room to look everything over. This time, Grace was let in, but only because Mosely didn't see anyone else around to bust him. The first thing Gabriel took interest in was an old leather-bound journal, embossed with the initials 'A.W.' He opened it up to the last entry, written only two days prior to the priest's arrival at the hospital.

"The nightmares are back. The ones from before the church. After all these years... Why? I saw the old rotten rats and maggots on the walls, and everything began to burn black. Then, there was a woman in green. She warned me about the arrival of the Mara. If this is a prophetic dream, God has chosen a path for me. I dare not diverge from it. Come what may, I will face the Mara and destroy her."

Gabriel felt a chill run down his back as he read the entry. "You cross-referenced the Mara, yet?"

"Hell, figured you'd help with that, Knight!" Mosely confessed.

"You're lucky, then... I know the Mara from the demonology books at Schloss Ritter. She's the demon of nightmares and fear. Nightmare comes from Mara, herself."

"Mrs. Crane mentions it in her journal, too." Mosely handed it over, but before Gabriel could take it, he tugged it away. "Now, before you read it... I want you to know that I think she was in your line of work. She knows way too much about this shit to think otherwise."

Gabriel paused apprehensively, quizzical of the claim, but took the book after a moment. He opened it up to the last entry before the remnants of a torn out page. It was more-or-less a collection of notes about the previous two victims, and their own lines of work.

"Mr. Warren - Priest. Definitely the Cross.  
Mrs. Beaumont - Palm Reader. Possibly the Seer?  
Mr. Capes - Songwriter. Maybe Bard. Or Warrior? This soon??

Visit Howard-Tilton at Tulane. Speak with the Expert. Password is 'Hecate'."

He closed the book, nodding. "Certainly seems like she was onto somethin'. We should follow her tracks."

Mosely picked up the next book, a worn notebook with scrawled pages of songs and lyrics. As Gabriel and Grace both began to look over the pages, Mosely commented, "This kid had some fucked up songs. Family in Kentucky said he had a rough childhood. His dad committed suicide when he was seven, and he struggled ever since. He had a history of cough syrup abuse. His mom said it was because he couldn't sleep." The familiarity to his own family history was striking, but the detail about the cough syrup, now that got him thinking to when he was younger. He carefully took the notebook into his own hands. The familiarity hadn't gone unnoticed by the other two in the room, either, especially his childhood best friend. "His style of music was this sorta Iron Butterfly stuff, but the lyrics were too dark to get him booked anywhere. He was comin' out here to meet with some friends and..."

Gabriel tuned everything out, even Mosely continued talking, as he read the song titled 'Call of the Mara'.

"Mara, you evil bitch,  
you and your pack of hounds.  
Chase me,  
chase me.  
Face me,  
face me.  
The Hounds;  
their teeth rip the flesh from my bones,  
so that my blood runs thick through the soil."

He slapped the notebook shut before reading any further, the color drained from his face. That was just as hard as looking through his own father's sketch book. The details were so close to his dream that it was impossible to deny. He tossed the notebook back onto the table. His words carried a chill as he whispered, "Ripped him apart..." He put his hand over his brow and eyes, forcing the vivid memory away. Grace reached over and held his arm, giving it a grounding squeeze.

Mosely leaned against the table, brow raised. The agent's look was squarely on him, now. "You mind tellin' me what's goin' on in that head'a yers?"

"... The night you called, I had a nightmare. Capes ran up to me and called for help. I tried to grab his hand, but this... shadow got him first. Turned into dogs and they..." He looked nauseated, and grimaced his mouth shut.

Mosely's expression softened, and he stood straight again. "... Looks like you need to be here, after all."

"Guess so." Not I want to be... No, I want to be. I just hate it, too.

A knock at the door had all their hearts skip a beat, and the poor clerk who opened the door was subject to sharp, focused looks. "Um..." She paused to swallow awkwardly. "Agent Mosely? We confirmed those two addresses. Do you want me to send some officers down to check them out?"

"No," Gabriel said before Mosely could speak. He turned back to look at him. "We outta go, ourselves. Handle this direct."

"... Yeahyouright." Mosely agreed. "We'll go. Don't worry about the boys." They filed out of the room, and the clerk was left to sort and clean up the evidence.

Grace cleared her throat and let his arm go after noticing she still held it. "Well... I guess now it's time to look at the bodies."

As they discovered when they went down there, Grace wasn't allowed in. Mosely cursed something about the FBI being slow on approving her to the case as an assistant-consultant. He'd apparently called about it earlier.

Going in without her left Gabriel with no grounding arm-squeeze for this part. He covered his mouth as the bodies were unveiled from under their sheets. They had all been autopsied, already, and the staples holding them together tugged against their dehydrated, dead skin. He hated how the dead looked. It only made him remember the people he'd lost before. He snapped out of his pained thoughts when Mosely said, "Autopsies show nothin' out of the norm other than the toxicology reports. Kidneys are slightly swollen, but that's the nightshade, apparently."

Gabriel jumped just slightly when the coroner handed him a pair of gloves. He couldn't get his nerves to settle, no matter how hard he tried. He took them gratefully, and the coroner took over where Mosely left off. "Each of them have minor lacerations on their necks," he explained, rolling Mrs. Beaumont's head to the side for the example. Gabriel leaned in as far as his stomach would let him, and noticed the small cut on her neck.

"Looks..." He swallowed back a gag that took him off-guard. Come on, Knight, when are you ever gonna get used to seeing the dead? "Looks like a necklace was torn off." He absent-mindedly held his talisman to his chest under his coat. He stood up straight. "Did you find any jewelry around them?"

"Nothin'." Mosely shrugged. The loose end was left to hang, for now. Then, Mosely popped up a bit, like he'd remembered something important. "Capes mom? She said he was missin' a necklace he inherited from his father. Said he never went anywhere without it."

Gabriel looked at the coroner, trying to politely excuse him with just the motion of his head to the door. When that didn't sink in, he sighed and took Mosely aside to go over things quietly. "Could have been like me. You know how I was before I found this kinda work. " Mosely looked back at him, suddenly concerned for him by the look on his face. "Whatever's goin' on, someone's organizing it. And they know a lot."

***

The first place they went was Bella Ambrose's apartment, above a tarot parlor. As they went up the outdoor stairs to her apartment, Grace tapped Gabriel's arm. "Gabe," Once he was looking, she pointed to the car. The same Bel-Air from before. "I've seen that car twice, now."

He shrugged his shoulders with a brief draw of his lips. "Well, might just be where the owner lives." She pursed her lips, unsatisfied. "If you're so worried, write down the plate. Mosely can run it."

"... No... Sorry, I'm probably just nervous." Grace sighed out, shaking her head.

Mosely waved them up the steps to the door as he knocked. A woman answered, revealing her nimble, attractive face. She was dressed in black, with a sequined veil covering all her face except for her eyes. Her gaze was fiery and emotional, and her smooth voice asked, "Yes? What is it?" Gabriel let Mosely talk, mainly because he was busy staring. She was gorgeous, but saddened. She looked like a widow.

"Hello, ma'am," Mosely said in his most 'official' voice, "We're here investigating the poisoning of Celine DeLane. We heard from her parents that you were a frequent client. Mind if we have a lil' chat?"

"Of course, Detective...?" She left the pause open for him to fill.

"Agent Mosely, ma'am. FBI." He flashed his ID card. "This here is Consultant Gabriel Knight, and his assistant, Ms. Grace Nakimura." He gestured to each of them as they were introduced. Bella gave each of them a look, lingering especially on Grace, then opened the door wide enough for them to enter.

Her apartment smelt strongly of patchouli and frankincense, and was dimly lit with a wide array of candles. Gabriel took note of the catholic imagery on the walls, mixed elegantly with new-age altars and statues of the Goddess. Mosely took a seat when invited, and Bella sat across from him. Gabriel stood behind his chair, since there weren't any other seats to take in the small studio. "We understand that you saw Celine at least once a week for tough healing. Can you tell me how all this works? I'm afraid I'm a little new to the idea of all this... new-agey stuff." Gabriel felt his mouth purse at the tone Mosely took.

Bella laced her fingers timidly in her lap. "Her healing helped me to deal with my pain. I was in a car accident two years ago, and almost lost the use of my legs. Cellie met me in physical therapy, where she would visit her cousin. She began to heal me, and I was able to walk again."

Mosely looked over his shoulder to Gabriel, eyes wide and brow raised. Gabriel looked back assuredly. Hey, it could happen. He had no reason to think it wasn't real. He was wearing a necklace that healed Grace from a coma. Anything was possible. "And, uh... You continued to see her after this, right?"

"Yes. Though I could walk, the pain still lingers. I have to use those crutches over there if I leave the house." She pointed to a pair of painted, decorated crutches. They looked like they were a constant companion. "We would meet at a special place, and she would heal me of my pain. We are... very close."

Gabriel took interest in the vagueness. "A special place? Where was that?"

Suddenly, Bella looked apprehensive, and shied away, turning her eyes away from the two men and toward Grace for a moment. "I can't tell you. I cannot do that to her."

"To her?" Grace spoke, now that she was the one being looked at. "Bella, please. This is important. She could die if we don't solve this."

Bella closed her eyes mournfully, lowering her gaze to her lap. "... She uses many methods to heal. Some her parents do not know about. We would meet at a houseboat on the edge of the water, she would preform sexual healing on me."

Now that was a juicy detail. Gabriel thought about the idea of sexual healing, finding it a very tempting prospect. Who knows, maybe he sexually healed a few lucky ladies. He felt Grace's elbow hit him square in the gut, and he bit his lip to hide the wind getting knocked half out of him.

Mosely leaned in curiously. "Excuse me? She would... have sex with you?"

"More than sex, agent. So much more." She grew a little rosy in the cheeks, and Gabriel spotted a slight smile from underneath the veil. "She would give me her own energy. She would fill me with her light. I... I dare say I love her for it."

Grace stared for a second, letting that process. Noting that both the men in the room were entirely silent, probably thinking about that, she took over the questions. "This... healing, would she do it with others, too?"

"I believe so. She would not withhold her healing from anyone who truly needed it."

Gabriel was still thinking about it, and the inner gentleman in him now chided him for even getting the slightest kick from the idea. 

Grace agreed with the inner gentleman, and smacked him on the arm subtly to get that look off his face. "Ahem..." She turned her focus back to Bella. "The last time you made love, was anything different? Did she seem different?"

"She said she was not sleeping well, and that her nightmares had returned. For that reason, she could not give me her light. She didn't have enough to spare. We still made love. I believe she wanted the comfort. She was scared."

"Scared of what?" Grace pressed.

"I do not know," Bella sighed out, shaking her head.

Gabriel, finally to his senses after what his head told him was too long, asked, "What about the loft? Can you tell us where it is?"

"Yes... I can," she reluctantly agreed.


	4. The Water

Mosely decided investigating the loft was more important than talking to Maurice, for now. They rode the 90 all the way to the small Chef Harbor Marina, where a small houseboat, decorated with fairy lights and tapestries, rested in the water. After getting cleared by the night porter, Mosely, Gabriel, and Grace made their way inside. The door was unlocked, which gave Mosely pause. He led his hand up, stopping Gabriel and Grace behind him. "Hold on." He placed his hand over his gun, unlatching it from its holster. He slowly pushed the door open, ready for anything. "Alright, whoever's in here: You best come on out now! FBI!" Gabriel watched cautiously from behind, peering into the room when he could.

It was dark inside, but the sounds of footsteps racing out the opposite door echoed loud enough for all of them to hear, followed by a distant splash. "Aw,  _hell!_ " Gabriel said under his breath, running to the edge of the boat and looking over the side. He spotted a woman with short red hair swimming away. "Whoever she is, she's runnin'!"

Mosely spun around to look where Gabriel was pointing. "Hey, you! Stop in the name of the law!!" he shouted, to which he got no answer or compliance. With a frustrated swat to the railing, he ran off the boat and down to the edge of the water. "Goddamnit! Get back here!"

Gabriel casually started taking off his shoes, plopping them on the boat deck. Once Grace caught on, she tried to protest, "It's the middle of winter!"

As he flung off his coat, he shrugged with a smile. "Yeah, but it ain't winter like it is in Germany!" He hopped over the edge, diving into the water to swim after their new suspect.

"Gabriel!!" Grace shouted before relenting and shedding her own shoes and coat as well.

Mosely watched on in confusion as Grace dived in after Gabriel, creating a trail of pursuit. He ran along the waterside, trying to keep his eyes on them.

Gabriel gained on the woman fast. He never swam much, but he swam fast when he did. Finally within reach of her, he grabbed a hold of her ankle. Her other foot swung up to hit him in the side of the head.  _Ouch..._ He held on tight, yanking her back and wrapping his arm around her neck. "N-now, come on!!" he said past the cold shivers setting in.

"Fuck off! Let me go!!" she screamed back at him.

"Mouthy, too!" He began to pull her toward the land, with the help of Grace, who latched onto both the woman's legs and paddled with him.

Mosely grabbed the woman by her collar, dragging her up. Grace slipped up onto land next, reaching down and helping Gabriel, a little dizzied, up and out of the frigid water. "What is it with you and doing this stupid stuff?!" she asked through huffs. Gabriel flopped onto the ground and laughed, trying to catch his breath as the cold air hit him.

As she was being cuffed by him, Mosely questioned, "Who are you?! What were you doing there?!"

The woman coughed from exertion, but eventually answered, "I'm Maurice Dalton! It's  _my_  houseboat, you shithead!!"

"Then  _why'd_  you run?!" Mosely snapped back, giving her a little shove to her feet and against a trailer wall.

"You were gonna  _shoot_  me!"

As the two argued behind them, Grace helped Gabriel sit up, brushing his wet hair out of his face to reveal a small, but bloody cut on his hairline. "Hope you got your shots. Who knows what's in this water..."

Gabriel winced as she touched the wound. "Aw, nothin' but a little  _alligator shit_  and some weeds." He saw a disgusted look cross Grace's features.

After a little while, two police cars pulled up, and Gabriel and Grace were both given 'shock' blankets to dry off with. While Grace was off getting a hot coffee from the marina office, one of the officers, a woman by the name of Paula Bogey, brought over a first aid kit. She was in the midst of tending to that cut on Gabriel's head when Mosely walked up and shoo'd her off. Gabriel trepidatiously tapped the cut, now covered with a bandage, and felt the spreading bruise along his cheekbone. "Fun first day back..." he said sarcastically.

"Yeah, well, thanks for gettin' her. I'm shit at swimmin'." Mosely tucked his thumbs into his belt, stretching his back a bit by rocking back and forth on his feet. "She's the same 'Maurice' Celine DeLane was seein'. Same story; Sex, healin', all that shit... But she says she didn't know about any other lovers. Guess she's kinda pissed now."

"Any idea why she ran?"

"Far as I can tell, she ran because'a the brick of mary jane we found in her houseboat. That, an' she probably didn't want to be outed as a lesbian. Her family doesn't know and I ain't inclined to tell 'em."

"Really?  _Nothin'_  to do with the poison?"

"She wasn't even in the state when Celine was poisoned. She says she only got back a few hours ago from Mexico." Mosely shrugged, unsatisfied. "I called the border office and they confirmed it. Times match. She's not involved."

"So I got kicked in the noggin for nothin'. Damn..." Gabriel frowned and stood up from the hood of the car. "What now?"

"Well, now that we've got her in custody for fleein' and assault, NOPD will book her and keep her for questioning, but I think you outta head to the hotel we got ya set up at. Get some rest, come back fresh tomorrow."

Gabriel watched as Maurice was loaded into the back of a cop car, a disappointed huff escaping him. "You  _know_  I won't be able to sleep." He saw Grace emerge from the office with two styrofoam cups, steaming nice and warm. Mosely turned to look her way as she walked up to them, a goofily grateful smile creeping on his face.

She looked a lot happier now with some caffeine and warmth, and handed one of the cups to Mosely, and the other to Gabriel. "Well, I figure it's gonna be an all-nighter. Is there anything else we can do?" she asked.

Mosely, after sipping, and  _wincing_ , at the hot coffee, shrugged and shook his head. "You can try lookin' at the previous crime scenes. Might be somethin' we missed that Mr. Shot-a-Jäger can tell us."

"Ha _ha_." Gabriel retorted flatly before sipping from his own cup. "Sure. I don't see why not."

Once he was dry enough to put his shoes and coat back on, they got into Mosely's car. He opted to turn the police scanner down and the radio on. It was a habit he had from when they were kids. Loud music to stay awake. The station he was tuned to, a classic rock station, began playing a familiar song as they pulled out onto the highway.

"Aw, you gotta turn that up more, Mostly," Gabriel said with a smile, recognizing the tune. Mosely acquiesced, but soon found he wasn't disappointed with the reason why.

Poison, by Alice Cooper. "Man, I ain't heard this since I was on the beat!" Mosely said with a wide, nostalgic smile. There was an odd, piercing irony to the song.

Gabriel couldn't help but start to sing along once it hit the chorus. "You're poison, you're poison runnin' through my veins,"

Then Mosely joined in, "You're poison, I don't wanna break these chains!"

Grace furrowed her brow in the back. "Really? You guys listened to this? Is this really app--..." She felt quite intentionally muted when Gabriel turned the radio up a little louder. She sat back in her seat, frustrated, at first, until she seemed to catch on that the two exhausted men were probably just trying to deal with the stress. A little levity couldn't hurt. She looked patiently out the window as they continued to sing along.

***

The crime scene Mosely took them to was off of Tulane Avenue, where Ms. Crane had been found delirious and panicked. Gabriel assumed she'd been stopped and poisoned on her way to meet with the Expert at the library, whoever they might have been. The scene itself, an alley between a liquor store and a antique shop, was still marked off with police tape. Gabriel felt just a little bit odd, actually being allowed to officially investigate rather than sneak in. Mosely lifted the tape for him, and he crossed under it, followed by Grace.

"She was found right there." The agent pointed to the side of a dumpster. "She was barely conscious, and it looked like she'd been placed there."

Gabriel approached the spot, an eerie feeling crossing over him as he neared it. He crouched down, trying to spot anything. "Got a flashlight, or somethin'? Dark as hell." Mosely plucked a small flashlight off of his belt and handed it over. "Thanks." Flicking it on, Gabriel leaned around, pointing the light between the dumpster and the wall. Just as he did, his eyes caught sight of a a piece of paper, torn at one edge and matching the color of Ms. Crane's journal. It was far behind the dumpster, impossible to reach with his arm. "I see somethin' back here... Help me move this thing."

"Like my back ain't hurtin'  _enough_..." Mosely stepped over to help, but Grace's arm on his shoulder stopped him.

"Don't worry, tender-handles. I've got this." She winked teasingly at him. He found himself caught between an offended pout and a smitten smirk.

Grace stood beside Gabriel, both of them taking the same edge of the dumpster and pulling it back. With a loud, grating squeal, the dumpster gave way and shifted. Gabriel tried to ignore how much worse that made his lingering headache as he stepped behind, flashlight in hand again. More mindful, this time, Gabriel pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and carefully plucked the paper from the wet asphalt. It ink was runny and smeared, and the handwriting itself was shaky and uneven, but he could make out a single sentence. "The woman in green..." he read aloud.

"The same one from the priest's journal?" Mosely leaned over Gabriel's shoulder to get a look at it, himself.

"I'd say so." Gabriel handed the note over, along with the handkerchief, and Mosely took it carefully. "Better get that in a baggie or somethin'."

Mosely headed back to his car, while Grace stood next to Gabriel. "I  _know_  that look. You know something about the woman in green, don't you?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I don't know. The dream I had on the plane... I saw her in it. Green robes. Guessin' that's who they meant."

"Who  _is_  she?" Grace stepped in front of him to pull his eyes from distantly staring at the dumpster. "Wait... If she was in their dreams... You don't think you'll be--"

He stopped that sentence before she could finish it by holding up his hand. The thoughts in his head were scattered and disorganized, like a freshly broken vase. It was frustrating to try and glue them together. "I don't  _know_. Not yet." He shook his head.

"Should you  _be_  here?" she asked, more hushed, "Is it  _safe?_ "

"Look, give me a minute, okay? Go check and see if Mosely can put anything together."

"Gabe--"

" _Go on_ ," Gabriel said more pointedly. Grace stepped back from him, a little off-put, and shook her head as she walked past him and back to the car.

He let out a slow sigh and turned his head to look down the alley. He could swear he heard a faint humming. Wait... He knew that humming..! He started down the alleyway, just barely catching sight of green fabric flowing around the corner. "Hey! Wait a minute!" he called out, starting to run.

When she heard his voice shout out, Grace spun around from Mosely. "Gabriel?" she asked aloud. He was already gone, having rounded the corner. "Gabe!" she called, starting to run down the alleyway, herself. Mosely tossed the bagged piece of paper into his car and ran after her. When she looked down either side of the back alley, she didn't see any sign of him. It was like he'd vanished into thin air. "Gabriel!!" she shouted again, loud and desperate.

There was no reply.


	5. The Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (WARNING: forced vomit after "too far away." pick up at next paragraph)

It felt as though he had been chasing her for blocks, now. He certainly wasn't near Tulane Avenue, anymore. The cityscape eventually broke into a wide open plain, where an old-fashioned looking caravan sat amidst the flora. It was bright red, with its shutters open. He saw a faint wisp of fog or steam coming out from the window, and the silhouette of a woman walking about inside.

He looked around, trying to mark out where he was. Somewhere near Lake Pontchartrain, since he could see the silhouette of what was once known as the Gedde estate in the distance. That was nowhere  _near_  where he had started out.  _Either I'm a better sprinter than I think I am, or there's magic afoot..._  Further down the road he stood on the edge of was that Bel-Air, seemingly empty. He noted that.  _Grace might have been right._

Turning back to the caravan, he cautiously approached, using Mosely's flashlight to illuminate the ground under his feet. Eventually he reached the door, and gave it a light rap of his knuckles. After what felt like longer than it should have been, the door opened with an aged creak, revealing the very woman he'd seen in his dreams. The same long dark hair, the same robes, the same look in her eyes. "You have heeded my call, hunter." Her voice was just as ethereal and calming as it was in his dream. Suddenly, the stress of the evening seemed much less so, and his mind felt cleared of its fogginess.

"... I'm not dreamin', am I?" he asked half-seriously.

She did not answer with anything more than a complex little smirk, and turned around. She beckoned him in calmly with her finger over her shoulder. He followed.

The inside of the caravan was decorated with several symbols and sigils, none he could recognize off-hand, though they looked Hebrew. There was little furniture, simply a cot and a table with two chairs beside a hotplate on the built-in counter. There wasn't much room for anything else. She gestured to one of the chairs, and he sat down quietly. He didn't feel the urge to press for questions. He waited, wanting to  _listen_ , instead.

"You are a survivor of many tragedies. Though life has left you with scars, you refuse to show them." Her tone was confident, as if she knew this as fact. He watched her closely as she poured two cups of tea, both from the same kettle. "You are also curious. No doubt you have questions for me."

"I think you know what I'd ask..." Gabriel replied quietly. The tea was set in front of him. It smelt wonderful, just like the tea his gran used to give him after a nightmare. Strong lavender and sweet chamomile.

She sat across from him, sipping at her own cup. "I do. You wish to know what my part in this is, and what I ask of you."

"That's the idea." Gabriel tilted his head in a half-nod. He picked up the cup of tea he'd been given, keeping his eyes on her as he sipped it. Her expression didn't flinch.  _Not poisoned, then._

She traced her finger around the rim of her cup. "I am a messenger. A keeper of veils. I have called on many, and now I call upon you."

"Did you  _'call upon'_  young Jeb? Or Celine?"

The question made her close her eyes and smile complexly once more. "Yes. I am regretful that the boy did not complete his path." She again sipped at her tea.

Gabriel took another drink from his cup. It was smooth and calming, exactly as he'd remembered it. He felt a pang of guilt for not having visited his gran the moment he arrived back home.

Again, she spoke, "You miss your grandmother. She is all you know of family and motherly love."

He cleared his throat tensely, occupying his mouth for a moment longer with more tea. "You're hittin' the mark, but that's... not why I'm here. You seem to know a  _lot_  about me. You have the advantage."

"Ah, forgive me. I have not yet told you my name." She placed her cup down. "I am known by many names. You may call me... Naomi."

"Cute name. Did you choose it yourself?" Gabriel quirked a brow.  _That's a Hebrew name._

"We dance with idle small talk. You should not waste your time. Those trapped have little of it."

"Alright..." Gabriel put his cup down, half-empty. "You said that 'if the sixth servant of light dies, the veil shall ever be torn, and the Mara shall rule all.' I wanna know what you meant by that, and why three people are  _dead_ , and two on their way there."

A chilly wind shook the shutters of the caravan, and Naomi looked to him far more seriously. "I meant exactly as I said. Three are dead because they could not defeat the Mara, the shadow of fear and night."

"The Mara is the demon of nightmares, right? How could you expect them to defeat a  _demon?_  Jeb was barely outta bein' a  _child_..."

Naomi frowned. "I did not sentence him to death, if that is what you assume. He tried and he failed to defeat the fear within. I regret having overestimated his strength. He was not a warrior. Not like you."

"... Warrior... What do you mean, warrior?" He rubbed his head. That headache was being made a lot worse by all these loophole-questions.

"There are six. The Cross, the Seer, the Bard, the Traveler, the Healer, and the  _Warrior_." She looked at him directly, and he felt his eyes forced to look at her. "You are the sixth. And you will fall to the same fate."

Gabriel felt those words hit his gut like a sack of rocks. Or... His eyes fell to the tea.  _No... I'm not that stupid... I couldn't have fallen for..._

"You couldn't have fallen for my trick? Do you not see the darkness before your eyes?" Naomi's eyes narrowed, and a wry smile grew on her lips. She no longer resembled anything pleasant. In fact, the entire caravan now held a tense air of looming threat.

"What... did you  _do_...?" His mouth no longer tasted of the sweet chamomile and lavender his gran would make him. It tastes instead of bitter mugwort, sickeningly sweet lotus, and what he could only assume was nightshade. He tried to get up, but found his legs no longer had the strength for it.

"I told you... If the sixth servant of the light should die, the veil shall ever be torn, and the Mara will rule all." She stood up, her robes flowing unnaturally amidst the sealed room. "I do not intend to fail, for  _I am the Mara_ , and I shall  _take_   _all!_ "

Gabriel clung to the talisman around his neck, finally struggling enough to stumble out of the chair. The room twisted and stretched, impossibly extending further and further into darkness. His mouth and throat went dry, and the light in the room became so much brighter. Naomi had no hesitation in reaching down and ripping the talisman from him. He felt the chain cut against his neck as it broke. Something about the way she looked at him made it impossible for him to keep his grasp on it. "N-no!" he shouted, reaching at the air for it.

"You shall face the Mara, ready or no!" As she said those words, she vanished into the ever extending darkness of the caravan.

Woozily clawing his way to his feet, he desperately chased after her. The talisman, which his great-uncle had died for, his  _only protection_ , was gone.  _So soon after I got it back, too..._  No, he couldn't think of anything else. He had to get it back before she slipped too far away. He used the walls to brace himself, quickly pushing two fingers down his throat to force a gag. His body reacted as it should have, and he heaved what little of the the tea hadn't yet been digested out onto the floor. He could see small glimmering bits of stone. Panting, he continued down the caravan, fighting against the effects, but already, he felt himself succumbing. Mosely was right... It  _didn't_  matter.

"Le mizo arech it ell!" He heard her shriek from the void. The words made no sense, but they had an unnatural impact on him. He felt like he was being plunged into ice cold water. He fought as hard as he could, and finally got up to his feet.  _A spell? Was that a spell?_

The cold air of the outdoors was against his skin, now, when before it had been the windy warmth of the caravan. He turned around, confused and lost, and saw two bright lights headed straight for him. There was a screech, and then black.

"Jesus Christ!!!" Mosely yelped while slamming his foot on the brakes. He stopped only a foot shy of Gabriel, who fell hard against the hood of the car, limply tumbling to the street below.

Grace felt her heart leap into her throat, and she got out of the car as fast as she could, Mosely right with her. "Oh god, Gabriel!" It had been nearly an hour of them combing the streets, and then, out of nowhere, he'd tumbled out from an alley and nearly got himself run over. As she rounded the car, she saw him laying on the ground, soaking wet like he'd been crawling on the wet concrete. She dropped to her knees, the asphalt scraping against her skin. Unwavering, she rolled him over onto her lap. "Gabriel, look at me!" She slapped his cheek gently, trying to get any response.

Mosely looked on in horror, the expression on his face looking far younger than he actually was. He was like a lost child, watching his best friend on the ground. "I... I'll call the EMTs!!" He ran back to the open car door, yanking his scanner mouthpiece out. "I need paramedics on scene! 123 off of South Broad and Napoleon!"

His words didn't even register with her. She just continued to gently slap Gabriel's cheek and rub his chest. "Please...  _Please_  open your eyes!!" As she rubbed his chest, she noticed his talisman was missing. The true panic set in. "Gabriel,  _please!!_ " But then, she saw his eyes just barely crack open, and she had to swallow back her sobs to focus on keeping him awake. "Hey! Hey, there you are! Gabriel, can you see me?"

His green eyes sluggishly moved around, focusing on nothing. His pupils were dilated, and she could feel him shivering. "... She... was playin'... me..." Grace heard him weakly say. "Fell... for it..."

"Who?!" She gently shook his shoulder as she saw his eyes begin to flutter shut again. "Gabriel,  _who?!_ "

"Na... Nao..."

Grace felt the hot tears rolling down her cheeks, but pressed on. "Stay with me! Keep your eyes open, do you hear me?!"

"Red... cara..." he said with just the barest amount of strength, "took... talisman..." His heavy eyelids started to drift shut. "Cast a... spell..."

"No, no  _no!_  Stay here! Stay  _with me!_ " Grace did her best to remember her emergency classes. She grabbed his hand and pressed hard down on his thumbnail so it would hurt nice and sharp. "Stay  _here!!_ "

"Naomi..." was the last word he said before drifting into unconsciousness.

The paramedics arrived within minutes, and before she could even get her thoughts straight, Gabriel was out of her arms and on a gurney. She felt Mosely take her up by the shoulders and get her to her feet. Numb... She was so numb.

He got her into the car, and followed right on the tail of the ambulance. "Grace?" he asked after a little while. She didn't answer. He reached over with his free hand and grabbed hers. "Grace, listen to me, he's gonna be okay. He's gonna be okay..." He seemed like he had to keep repeating it just to convince  _himself_.

***

By the time they'd reached the hospital, she was half-back to her senses. She followed right behind Mosely as they rushed into the ER, following the group of nurses and EMTs surrounding the gurney Gabriel was on. She tried to get a look at him beyond the sea of shoulders, but only caught a glimpse of his pale face, half-obscured itself by an oxygen mask.

They were only allowed so far, and eventually, Mosely had to hold her back. "We can't go there. We have to let them work," he insisted. The doors to the room beyond closed shut, and it then all there was to look at was Mosely. She could see it all over his face, the guilt and fear. She didn't see an FBI agent then, she saw a terrified friend. She bit down hard on her lip and buried her face into his shoulder. She felt his arms wrap tight around her and hold her there for a while.

They were lost if they  _lost him..._


	6. The Shock

At some point, this had to wear off, right? These shivers, the random sobs. It all had to pass eventually. She kept telling herself that in the nearly silent family room. Mosely had stepped out to make what was possibly the hardest phone call of his life, waking poor Rebecca Knight up in the middle of the night, only to tell her her baby grandson was now queueing up for Death's door.  _Don't think like that. He's not going to die._

Her shaking hands held a mug of black coffee, threatening to go cold if she ignored it much longer. Nervously, she chugged half of it down, then shoved the mug to the end table. She buried her face in her warmed hands, sniffling back the new wave of tears coming in.  _Focus. You're his only chance, now. Solve it. You can solve it. But who is she? Who is Naomi? How did she get a hold of Gabriel? How did he manage to move so far?_  The loose ends dangled just out of her reach, and her hazy brain was in no condition to reach further for them.

When Mosely came back into the room, he looked like a ghost. He was exhausted, overwrought from the day. He sat roughly in the chair across from her, leaning forward and running his fingers through his messed hair. "Grace I'm... I'm so sorry..." He sounded on the verge of tears.

Grace shook her head. "Don't... Please." She lifted her face up to look at him. He looked back at her with red, puffy eyes. "He's a shattenjäger. He would have come here, anyway..." She cleared her throat and wiped her face clean once more. "Is his grandmother on her way?"

"Catchin' the fastest cab, a.k.a. a police escort." He looked down at the floor between his feet. Guilt was still steeped into every line on his features. She wasn't sure what to say to take it away. "I was worried I'd kill her. Shock like that..." He shook his head. "Not the first time."

"What?" Grace tilted her head.

"He accidentally overdosed on Nyquil, once. Found him in his dorm." Mosely let out a sigh. Grace wondered if that was what got that expression out of Gabriel earlier when they were talking about Jep Capes. "Didn't mean to, but he hadn't slept for who knows how long. Never talks about it, I'm guessin'."

"... No... No he doesn't..." She looked away. When she thought about it, she never once saw him take anything to help him sleep. Was that why?

Then two were then caught in a wholly uncomfortable, but acknowledged silence, waiting for any word to come to them.

***

Now that he couldn't hear Grace's voice, the darkness drifted around him for what seemed like an eternity. As he finally began to feel gravity setting in, he tried to find the ground below his feet. It felt like it came too soon, no matter how slow he tried, and he roughly toppled onto the tile floor. "Augh..." he grunted with slight pain, wrestling to get up. Standing, he got a look at what formed around him, like pieces of burnt paper healing back together. He was in a hospital, or was what left of one. There were more bodies, cut open and dissected on dozens of different beds. Even though they were dead, the monitors were still attached to them. He heard all of the different flat tones mix together ominously. One of them had a face he could never forget. Wolfgang. He turned away with a gasp, unable to look back. Then, he saw something in the room beyond. He carefully pushed through the doors.

He could see himself, on a gurney stained many times over with blood. The shades and shifting shadows surrounding him used dirty metal tools, cutting and peeling at his clothes, then his skin. He wanted them to stop. He could see the blood running out from his body. His breaths hitched and his vision blurred, and he felt every inch of muscle tense and spasm with their pricks. "Stop it!!" he finally managed to shout, his arms reaching for himself on the bed. "Get off'a me!!"

They spoke in gibberish, none of it he could understand. They coo'd and hushed his body, like calming an animal before the slaughter. His heart pounded in his chest as he watched them take a rotor blade off of the tray beside his lifeless self, and move to cut him open.  _What is this?! What's happening?!_  He tried to reach again, but this time felt a pair of hands firmly grab  _him_ , not his body, and yank him backward through the doors. "Calm down!" he heard a woman's voice say. "It will kill you if you don't calm the fuck down!!"

He turned around, stepping back in preparation to run if he had to. Standing in front of him was a woman he  _knew_  he'd seen before. Margo Crane. "Y-You're... Margo Crane? Where...?" He caught his shaking breath.

"Yes, that's my name. Who are you? Are you the Healer?"

His mind lagged behind for precious seconds until he swallowed and shook his head. "She called me the Warrior..." Gabriel's shoulders sunk. "I guess that's the one I am..."

"Shit! She has the last one!" Margo bit her lip hard, then took in a breath to calm herself. "Your name, then."

"Gabriel Knight," he introduced. "Where are we?"

Margo stared at him for a while, then reached out and grabbed his hand, as if making sure he was solid. Satisfied that he was, she answered, "Some call it the Dreaming. Some call it the nightmare world. It's a place between places, like an astral plane..." She put her hand to her breast. Her other hand still held his arm nice and tight. "I'm the Traveler. The other three are--"

"Dead. I know. I  _was_  investigatin' your poisoning." He slipped his arm free of her grasp. She looked as if she'd forgotten she was holding him in the first place. " _And_  the others. Celine DeLane, too."

"I haven't seen her. She must be the Healer. That's three of us." Margo held her jaw thoughtfully.

"How... did you find me?" he felt the need to ask.

Margo looked to the side and shrugged. "I can see things happen before they do, sometimes.  _Clairvoyance_ , I guess. I get a sense of where I need to go."

Gabriel shook his head and sighed. "You seem like you've gotten used to this quick."

Margo looked at him, confused. "It  _hasn't_  been quick. I feel like I've been here for weeks. How long have I been out?"

"Two  _days_ , I think."

She turned her head away in thought. "Time must work differently here... It doesn't matter. Listen to me," she said while looking him straight in the eyes, "You can't let yourself be overwhelmed by fear. That's the only way the Mara can kill you. She  _has_  to kill you with fear."

"Why?"

"Sacrifice, I think. Every time one of us dies, The sky gets redder. It's already like blood." Margo frowned with frustration as not knowing for sure. "Jeb was the Bard, the last one to... I saw him die."

Gabriel solemnly looked to his feet. "Me too, and I'd prefer not to end up the same way, so any ideas of how to get out?"

When he looked back at her, Margo gave him a stare that reminded him of Grace, in that she was pissed he asked. "If I  _knew_ , I'd be  _out_. I was stopped before I could speak with the Expert."

"At Howard-Tilton." Gabriel finished the thought. "Did you get a chance to talk to the Cross or the Seer?"

"I spoke to the Seer, but the Cross had already died. Bethany was taken while I wasn't looking. I found her,  _drowned_ , later..." The heavy weight of responsibility tinged her voice. "If we move fast, we can find the Healer.  _Celine_ , right? She's likely to be somewhere near where she was found, or maybe she wandered to a familiar place."

Gabriel hadn't actually gotten the chance to physically see Celine in the hospital, only her photo. He wasn't even sure he was at the same one she was. He furrowed his brow. "She stayed at a houseboat down at the Chef Harbor Marina a lot. She might be there."

"Then that's where we have to go." Margo turned to head down the hallway, fully expectant of Gabriel to follow. He didn't exactly have a choice, so he did. "By the way," Margo began, "You must be strong. You managed to keep connected to your body until you got to the hospital. Was there a reason?"

"Huh?" Gabriel tried to think back to it. The headlight, then black, then... "Grace," he said, "It might have been Grace. I remember her tryin' to keep me awake."

Margo considered the details, nodding understandingly. "Like a tether to the real world. She must have kept you feeling safe. Some kind of woman you got, there."

"Ahah... She ain't mine..." Gabriel sighed out, partly disappointed.

***

They were being escorted to the ICU ward Gabriel had been placed in when Mosely stopped, holding Grace back by her arm. When she turned to ask why, she saw elderly Grandmother Knight racing up the hallway to catch up. She was holding her satin nightdress skirt up, showing the compression socks and house slippers she was wearing beneath. Her hair was still in rollers, with a few wisps and stands hanging loose like she hadn't bothered to get ready before racing out the door. "Franklin! Grace, oh!" Mosely ran back to meet her half way, Grace trailing afterward. He held Mrs. Knight around the back, holding her wrist with his free hand. "What's happened? Where's my Gabriel?"

Mosely looked like he'd just choked on a penny, but croaked out, "He's in the ICU, we were just headin' that way. They got him stable."

"You were sayin' somethin' about poisoning over the phone! I don't understand..." Mrs. Knight looked positively frantic and confused. Mosely obviously hadn't said too much.

"We'll explain everything once we're with him, Mrs. Knight, I promise," Grace tried to say in as soothing a voice as possible, reaching over and taking Rebecca's other hand.

"Oh, Gabriel..." Mrs. Knight shook her head, looking like she was fighting back a well of emotions ready to burst. She walked with them to the doors of the ICU, and they only parted once they'd reached his bed.

He was pale and tired looking, caught in a restless sleep. They had an IV in his arm, and an oxygen line under his nose. He looked better than before, but not great. That bruise on his cheek was darker now, too. Grace was utterly wordless, watching as Mrs. Knight approached the bedside. "Gabriel...?" the grandmother tentatively called, gently stroking his forearm. She felt how warm he was, and didn't take her hand off of him while Mosely pushed a chair up behind for her to sit in. Once sat, her fingers moved up to try and fix his messy blonde hair, chewing her lip. "Can he hear me?" Never once did her eyes move from his face.

"It never hurts," Grace reasoned, walking over to take up the other side of the bed. She reached out, as well, holding his other arm. "Something he can hold onto..." She looked further down the line of beds, spotting Margo Crane's feet from behind a curtain. Celine DeLane had been taken to a different hospital, but was being prepared to be moved here, as well, from what Mosely said. All three of them would be there, and she could only hope she didn't have to watch any more of them die.

As she examined her grandson, her look of dismay and worry shifted to resignation mixed with a tinge of frustration. "... Alright, now listen here," Mrs. Knight said after a long, deep breath, "I've been dealin' with this 'in-the-dark' business for  _fifty years_ , now. Whatever this 'shattenjäger' business is, it's already taken too many men from my life. I want to know what all this is about. I want to know  _why_."

Grace could understand. She nodded her head, looking to Mosely. "Alright. We'll tell you."

Seeing as their only near-by company were patients in no condition to listen, Grace felt calm enough explaining in a quiet voice. And so she did. She told the entire story of the Voodoo Murders months before, the Ritter family history, and the newest case. It took almost an hour, and Rebecca Knight could only listen in shock and awe while holding onto her grandson's hand. The information was like a flood, and her, a weakened dam. By the end of it, she looked like she was only beginning to understand. She was never a superstitious woman, but it seemed like that was over, now. "So... all this time the two of you have been away, he's been learning how to... hunt these things?  _Demons_  and  _Loa?_ "

"Yes," Grace said pragmatically. She walked around the bed to Rebecca's side, kneeling down to look up at her with all seriousness. "So now that you know... You understand why we have to go." She gestured to herself and Mosely. "We have to try and find a way to stop this, before it kills anyone else."

Rebecca looked down to her, taking her hand. "And that will save my Gabriel?"

"It's the only way." Mosely stepped in to say, having taken the hour to collect himself again. Now, he looked ready to go back out there.

Rebecca, staring at the two of them, slowly nodded her head. "Then you go. You save those two girls and my boy." She placed her aged hand on Grace's cheek to seal her blessing. Grace took that as the best affirmation she could ever get.


	7. The Shadow

Margo wasn't lying when she said time moved more slowly. It felt like a whole day had slowly dragged by. It was a long trek on foot, but seeing as every car that he could see was stripped and barren, Gabriel figured it was the only way. The blood red sky above them offered little light, but just enough to let them see the road signs. After a while, he took the lead, knowing the streets much better. As long as they were walking, they could at least chat. "So, Margo, tell me about yourself."

"What good would it do?" she retorted dryly.

"I figure..." He paused to climb over a hunk of rubble in the road, turning to help her step down from it after him. She didn't accept the help, and plopped down on her own. He shrugged.  _Her loss._  "I figure that it'll take us a long time to get there on foot. Might as well get to know one another." Maybe it would make the time feel as though it was passing faster.

After a pause, she sighed and agreed by asking, "Well, what do you know about me, already? You were investigating."

"I know you're twenty-eight years old. You're from California, and you have no family," he listed those off matter-of-factly. "I also know you were out here  _huntin'._  You're in my line of work."

"What  _line of work_  is that?"

"No need to play coy. I'm a  _shattenjäger_." He could hope she knew what that was, or that her German was better than his had been.

She recognized the term, and nodded to affirm that they were, indeed, in the same field. "I'm a cazador de demonios." Now French and German? Not his specialty. But he'd learned some Spanish to talk to the gorgeous Creole woman who worked at the corner market down the street from St. George's Book Store.  _'Hunter of devils'._

Gabriel once again offered her his help when having to climb over uneven terrain. She again refused and went over it on her own. This time, he just shook his head. "Okay, so tell me somethin' I  _don't_  know," he requested.

"I'm a  _pisces_."

"You're not makin' this very easy on me, are you?" he grumbled slightly, trying to hide it with a small laugh. "Gonna have to ask somethin' hard, eventually."

"So do it."

_Well, she asked for it._ "How about this? I tell you somethin' you can tell me somethin'?" He figured he'd begin somewhere relatable. "... I lost my parents in a car crash when I was eight. How old were you when you lost yours?"

Margo stopped walking, looking at him directly. Her eyes had the same pained look as his did whenever he had to talk about his parents. "... They were traveling abroad. Their plane crashed. I was six." There it was, that slight bit of connection he could hold onto.

"Do you remember much about them?" he asked as she started walking along-side him. "They must have both been  _beautiful_ , lookin' at  _you_."

Margo ignored that --  _pointedly._  "Not as much as I'd like. My mother was a cazador, like me. My father was an archeologist. They were madly in love. Had no family other than each other and me." She stuffed her hands in her denim jean pockets. "My mother was from Mexico, and met my father when he was on a dig in one of the Mayan temples. They moved to California together. She was already a cazador, by then." When she looked at him, he looked intrigued back at her. She went with it and kept talking. "They were trying to live as normal of a life as they could. I was often left home with a nanny. After they died, I was sent to an Catholic orphanage in San Diego, raised by the nuns. It was a favor the Mother Superior owed my mom, I guess. I only found out about the work my mother did when I was eighteen, and was given my inheritance. Her tools, her books, what money they had put away for me. After that, I knew my path, so I followed it. After I became a cazador, I got my clairvoyance."

Gabriel felt he knew her a lot better, now. Those pains were all too similar to his own. "I'm sure they're somewhere out there, watchin' you."

"Oh?" Margo quirked her lip, as if there had been some kind of intrusion. "Why's that?"

"I dunno. Feels like mine watch me," Gabriel answered honestly, and that seemed to diffuse her.

She sighed and shook her head. "Let's talk about you, then. You have a girl? Family?"

"No girl," Gabriel started, "Could'a been one, once. She's...  _gone_  now." He'd leave that painful, all-too-recent memory tucked away, for now. "Besides, I used to live a nice, free and  _open_  life. I enjoyed  _any_  woman's company, if she wanted  _mine_. Well,  _and_  if she was pretty enough, too." Once he got another unimpressed side-glance, he smirked and moved on. "I gave that life up when I started hunting." he assured. "My grandfather was a shattenjäger, like me, but abandoned it to try and live a normal life. Bit him right in the ass, guess you could say. There was a curse on our line. My great-uncle died to try and save me from it. I would have died, too, if I hadn't found the path I was supposed to be on. My only blood-family left is my gran."

"She must be the most patient grandmother in the  _state_ , putting up with you."

"Aw, you'll hurt my feelings," he retorted. "Any friends? A  _man_ , maybe?"

"No. It's just an open door to cause me more trouble." She held up a finger. "And before you try, I'm not interested in fucking, either."

" _Wasn't gonna ask._  Hardly the time, really." He supposed this was just how Margot was. He was used to the type. Abrasive, dismissive, guarding. So much like Grace. "You remind me of--"

A snarl from behind ended the conversation, and both of them wheeled around. Approaching fast was a tumbling mass of shadows, rolling in like a supremely low cloud layer. "The Shadow! Run!!" Margo shouted, grabbing Gabriel's arm and pulling him along into a full sprint.

His heart started up that racing again, and no matter how fast they ran, the Shadow loomed closer. As it drew close to him, it began to take shape. "Witch hunter!!" he heard that all too familiar voice screech out. Just as he turned to look over his shoulder, he saw Tetelo's face form in the cloud, rushing out toward him.

Like that, he was on his back, desperately trying to crawl away.  _She's dead! She's dead!!_

"I will return! I will take her from you! I will take  _them all!!!_ " Tetelo bellowed. "The Mara has given me the power! I will  _destroy_  you!"

Margo reached down to grab him, but the Shadow slammed her away with a tendril of dark mass. She landed roughly on the ground a few yards away. The Shadow then took its form, a woman dressed with only a loincloth and a snake draped over her chest. Her hair fell in tight curls, and a dagger formed in her hand. He knew that woman.  _Tetelo, riding Malia's body._  She had forever been burnt into his mind since the day he... "You failed her, Knight! You failed her as you will fail all!" Tetelo laughed mockingly at him, stomping him onto his back with her bare foot. He couldn't get out from under her. He was too frozen in fright. She raised her  curved, inscribed dagger up.

"No! Stop!!" Gabriel screamed out. It felt so  _real._ Was it real?

***

"Heart rate is through the roof!!" a nurse said as she tried to hold his shaking body down. "Convulsions starting! Get me the versed!"

He was shouting, and shouting like he was terrified. "Oah! Lemah!!" It made no sense, but Grace could barely stand hearing him plead so desperately.

She and Mosely tried to stay out of the doctor and nurse's way, but Rebecca would have none of it. She fought against the doctor holding her back. "Ma'am, please, let us--"

There was no way to keep her back, the doctor found, as Rebecca yanked right out of his arms and rushed over to her grandson's side. "Gabriel! Gabriel, don't be afraid!" she pleaded, holding his arm and rubbing it. "It's gonna be okay!" She took a moment to think, watching him in still fright. Swallowing hard, she spoke again, her voice softer as she used her other hand to stroke his head,

"Lullaby and goodnight,  
With roses bedight,  
With lilies o'er spread,  
Is baby's wee bed...."

Grace watched on, hands firmly over her mouth. Mosely held her close. " _C'mon_ , Knight..." she heard him say under his breath.

***

Somehow, the Mara must have called Tetelo here. He couldn't think of any other way. It was entirely possible. She might have been banished from the corporeal, but he had no idea about  _here_. She was back for him. She wanted to finish him off. Just as Tetelo straddled him to better plunge her dagger into his chest, he started to feel a rubbing on his arm. Then his hair felt like it was being shifted about. Past Tetelo's screams of vengeance, something began to break through.  _Those words... That voice... I know them!_  Shutting his eyes tight, he forced himself to listen harder. "... Gran?"

_"Lay thee down now and rest,  
May thy slumber be blessed."_

It forced him to think again. He remembered Malia's sacrifice, and the bane of Tetelo as she plunged to her  _permanent_  death. "No... Tetelo is  _dead!_ " Blindly, he grabbed hold of the false Tetelo's arms, stopping the blade just inches from his chest. "She can't hurt me!" he shouted loud enough to believe it. The Shadow wailed in frustration as a warm wind blew strongly against it, forcing it to disperse. Tetelo's shape vanished, the Shadow fleeing in its more  _ambiguous_  form. He stayed still for a while longer, finally opening one eye to peek around. Nothing. He looked over his shoulder and saw Margo getting up to her feet. "It's.... gone?" he asked aloud.

***

"Hold on..." the nurse said as she stayed the needle from his arm, "Heart rate dropping... Convulsions too." She sounded as though she could scarcely believe it. Her and the doctor both looked to Rebecca, who slowly stood straight and swallowed.

"I  _know_  my boy," she explained with a small nod.

Grace, just as surprised, felt something click in her head. "Maybe if there's someone to calm them -- someone they know -- it can help!" Well, at least it was a hopeful assumption. "Mrs. Knight, stay here with him. Keep him as calm as you can!" She tugged Mosely's coat. "We have to go stop this thing."

Rebecca nodded with a reassured smile. "I will. And dear?" Grace stopped, turning to look back. "Please, call me  _'Gran'._ " They shared a quiet smile with one another, then Grace turned and continued out of the room.

***

Gabriel was right beside Margo in moments, helping her stand up fully. "Are you alright?"

Margo dusted herself off, then just gave up on it. "I'm fine," she answered sharply. "What happened? The Shadow never stops once it catches someone... I thought you'd be dead."

"I dunno. I... I think my gran is with my body." Gabriel looked around again for the shadow, but saw no traces. "Hearin' her made me fight it off, I s'pose."

Margo looked frustrated, but grateful, in a way. "At least one of us has protection."

"From the Shadow, at least. Mara herself's a whole 'nother question... C'mon, we gotta get to Celine before that  _thing_  does!" He patted her on the shoulder, then started jogging down the road. Celine had family of her own, he could only hope they were protecting her, too.


	8. The Bel-Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (NOTE: I do not condone the use of the slur 'gypsy' in modern speech. This is set in the mid 1990's, when there was unfortunately less social awareness of the Roma's struggles. Please do not call anyone, any fashion, or anything a 'gypsy'. It's gross.)

****It was as deep into the night as it could get, just before the sun would begin to rise. They had to work fast, and both of them knew it. Who knew how long Gabriel, Ms. Crane, or Ms. DeLane could last. "What's first?" Mosely asked abruptly as they left the hospital. That cold winter chill, compared to the heated hospital, woke them both up nice and fast.

"Well, what do we know?" Grace asked back rhetorically. "We know that it's not the poison that kills them, but whatever this 'Mara' is. The stuff they ingest is likely just the components to actually cast the spell." He lead herself down the line of questions. "What are the components? Mugwort, Egyptian lotus, nightshade, selenite, and jasper. Most of those are used for astral projection..."

"So they get forced out of their bodies. That explains the coma-state..." Mosely commented. "And all the victims, even Gabriel, were havin' nightmares before-hand. Seems like they were all bein' called here."

"Had to be a pretty powerful call." Grace crossed her arms, tapping her chin with her curled index finger in thought. "Next question, who is Naomi?" she asked herself aloud. Her thoughts brewed for a good few moments, then it came to her. "Wait, that's Hebrew! The Book of Ruth!" She held her finger up to punctuate her slow quotation. "'Call me not Naomi, call me... Mara!"

"So the woman in green is the Mara, herself?" Mosely believed it once he repeated it himself.

With that explained, she moved on. "The 'Expert', whoever they are, is at Howard-Tilton, but the library doesn't open its doors until eight-in-the-morning. Until then, what can we do?" Then she stopped, dead still. There it was, across the street and pulling off, the biggest lead she could hope for.

_That damn blue Bel-Air._  "There it is again! The car!" She grabbed Mosely arm and pointed. "I've seen it three times, and always whenever something happens!"

"Huh?" He looked over, spotting it while it pulled off the curb and started down the road. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely!"

They rushed to Mosely's car, and as fast as he could, he swerved out of the parking lot to follow after. He made sure to hide behind a few cars to stay disguised. Grace jotted down the plate number, in case they lost sight of it. Eventually, the traffic died off to where he had to follow far behind. They drove into the Garden's District, probably the nicest part of it, too. When the Bel-Air finally pulled into its driveway, Mosely watched in confusion. "I know that house... That's Old Lady Bow's place!" He sighed loudly. "Oh that damn bird... Probably tryin' to put together a story."

"What? Who is she?" Grace furrowed her brow.

"Crazy as a loon  _supposed-to-be-retired_ -reporter." Mosely pulled his car over to the bank-side, getting out just as the woman was getting out of her car a few yards off. "Mrs. Bow-Dorian, what in the  _hell_  are you doin'?" Grace got out quietly after him, watching the conversation as an outsider.

The woman, very old-looking, with her hair up in dressy curls adorned with a black cloche hat that looked straight out of the 20's, answered in a very sweet-sounding tone, "Why, Detective Mosely!"

" _Agent_  Mosely, ma'am," he corrected, stopping at the foot of her driveway. 

"Oh, 'scuse me," Mrs. bow-Dorian said apologetically, "I  _forgot_."

"It's four in the mornin'! What are you doin' followin' us to the hospital?" Mosely demanded. Grace joined him at his said, looking confused as ever. This kindly old lady, dressed in frills and lace, was following them?  _She's old enough to be in a nursing home!_

"Well, I'd really rather not discuss all that out here so late. Please, come inside!" She smiled warmly and walked up her porch to her door. Mosely let out another exasperated sigh and obliged, Grace doing the same.

The inside of her house looked like a time capsule. Everything was decorated with doilies and embroidered table cloth. The sitting room, where they were led, was warm and cozy, for how old it all looked. Honestly, Grace wondered how much longer the aged furniture could last as she sat down on it. It squeaked loudly under her weight. "Oh, never you mind that ol' squeak. It's been doin' that for twenty years." Mrs. Bow-Dorian took her own seat across from them. "Now, what is it you'd like to know?"

Mosely rubbed his eyes, repeating, "Why are you followin' us? Ms. Nakimura here says she's seen you three times, now."

"That's right," Mrs. Bow-Dorian replied, nodding her head pleasantly. "I'm just tryin' to follow up on some leads, that's all. I'd be more than happy to help y'all with your investigation."

Mosely, skeptical and dismissive, said, "Mrs. Bow-Dorian, I--"

"Please, agent, call me  _Laura._ "

"--...  _Laura_ , I'm not sure what help a ninety-two year old lady can offer. You best just stay home and--"

Grace cut him off, this time, hushing him with her hand on his knee as she asked, "Actually, Laura, what can you tell me? What do you know?"

Laura smiled wide at Grace, a sort of kinship showing. "I'm sure you know my friend Bethany Beaumont,  _God rest her soul_ , was one of the victims in your case. I'm sure you  _also_  know she was comin' to see me before she died."

"Yes, but you said the visit was just small talk. Catchin' up," Mosely added.

"I'm  _sorry_ , Agent Mosely!" Laura sounded earnest and kind. "I just wasn't sure if I could tell you, yet. Not with all the corruption in the police force these days."

"So what was it about, then?" Grace pressed further.

Laura eased into her chair, resting her hands daintily on her lap like a proper lady. "Bethany was comin' to see if I could find her daughter. I'm a bit of a mystery-solver,  _myself_." She jutted her jaw to the framed articles behind the couch Mosely and Grace sat on.

There were a lot of them, but the two oldest stood out. When Grace read the headlines, one said, "COLLEGE GIRL SOLVES MULTI-HOMICIDE, UNCOVERS HIDDEN JEWELS" and the other, "LAURA BOW SOLVES MUSEUM THEFT And Museum Murders!" Each article had a photo, both of a young woman with the same curls Laura had now. She'd barely changed at all, spare the obvious signs of age.

"Anyway, her daughter, Rowena, lived here in New Orleans. She's a medium of sorts. She uses hypnosis, too. She went missin' about a month ago. The note she left behind was  _most_  disturbin'."

"Do you have it?" Grace asked.

"Why,  _yes_." Laura opened up her clutch purse, which she had sat on the end table next to her, and pulled out the note, kept in a common ziplock baggie. Grace read it, and it said:

_"Dearest mother,  
She calls to me each night, now. I can no longer resist her. Though I have tried, she still invades me. She makes me think things... Awful things. I must go to the Expert, and see if he can save me. I do not know her plot, but I know I am to be part of it. Please mother, do not follow me. I worry she may come after you, as well. Watch over my baby girl. Keep her safe from this darkness that will take me."_

She handed the note to Mosely to read, himself, asking, "Do you know anything about the Mara, Laura?"

"I only know a little. I did do some researchin' at the library." Laura looked up in thought, trying to recall. "She's a demon, and I think She's taken Rowena to use for Her plot, whatever it is."

"This note mentions a baby girl. Who is that?" Mosely looked up from the note to ask.

"Bethany's granddaughter, little Susanna. She's been staying with her cousins in a roamin' caravan train." She leaned a little closer to say, "Y'see, Rowena is half-gypsy, and lived with her father out here. She lost her husband shortly after Susanna was born seven years ago, but stayed with her father's side of the family in the caravan train until she disappeared, takin' her caravan with her."

Grace thought it over, and some of the threads started to come together. "What does Rowena wear? Do you know?"

"I only met her a couple'a times, but she was awful fond of green. She said it was the color of good fortune!" Laura perked up a bit, puffing her curls. "I wear green a lot too. It  _does_  seem lucky!"

There. The connection. Mosely caught on, too, and the two shared a look. Everything fit, now. "I think you might actually be  _right_ , Mrs. B-- Laura." Mosely caught himself.

"I'd like to think so!" Laura smiled in return. "Now, I don't know much more than that, but I can tell you I saw Rowena's caravan near Lake Pontchartrain the night your friend was taken to the hospital. And I saw  _him_ , too."

"You saw Gabriel?"

" _Gabriel!_  That was his name. He just came right out of nowhere! I thought he was familiar. My husband,  _God rest his soul_ , used to come over and teach Gabriel's father a thing or two about painting. The two got on so well. I saw little Gabriel when he was just a baby. He was so cute! I remember holdin' him and thinkin' of my own babies."

Before she could get too sidetracked, Grace brought her back by saying, "Where exactly was the caravan? Do you remember the streets?"

Laura, dragged back from her sentimental thoughts, answered with, "Yes, it was just off'a the ten, headin' west towards Norco. There's a big undeveloped field there. I think it's where a lot of the gypsy-folk go to have some fun um...  _privately_."

"Thank you, ma'am. You've done a lot to help us," Grace said gratefully.

"I hope so, dear. I hope so. After I heard that Gabriel had been hurt on my scanner, I was so worried!"

"Oh  _lord_... You gotta scanner?" Mosely appeared to outright  _dread_  the thought of her listening in all the time.

Laura didn't notice his dismay. She reached over and tapped on the note. "I think you two are just the right people to follow this lead! This 'Expert' -- whoever they are -- has  _got_  to know somethin' that can help y'all."

Grace nodded thoughtfully. "I think you may be right. But first, we should look at the field and see if we can find that caravan." She turned to Mosely, who agreed with a stiff bob of his head.

***

It was a big field to search, and it was dark to top it off. Mosely gave Grace a flashlight and a government issue cellphone. It was part of a set, and he had the other half of it, himself. They split off, Mosely searching closer to the water, while Grace searched close to the road.

_Now, if Laura was parked next to the road, there must be some kind of sign. In this weather, exhaust pipes, especially old ones, would get humid, and leave water stains on the asphalt._  Luckily, it hadn't rained, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to find it. A small puddle on the road pointed her right to where the car had been, and she looked around from the spot itself to see any signs. In the grass, she saw a reflective glint.

She walked over, her shoes sinking into the wet grass and making uncomfortably squishy noises. When she was close enough, she saw a flashlight. It was the one Gabriel had been using. She pressed the speed-dial button on the cellphone, and Mosely picked up with, "Found anything?"

"I found Gabe's flashlight. It's just sitting here." She used her own flashlight to spot his bootprints in the muddy grass. "And he walked away from it at some point... That's weird..." she noted as she followed the footprints backwards from the flashlight.

"What?" Mosely asked quizzically.

"Well, his footprints... They just...  _start_  from this spot. There's no prints behind them, and it's too far from the curb to jump." Not that she would understand why he would have jumped there, anyway. Her foot tapped against something on the ground, a flat rock. She examined it. "There's a rock here. It has some sort of markings on it. I can't recognize them." She tilted her head.

"Okay, hold on. I'll meet you there. Ain't no caravan out here tonight."

She waited, though her finger traced along the carved symbols absent-mindedly. "Okay, just hurry up. It's creepy out here." As her finger completed tracing the circle around the symbols, she felt a little dizzy. Then everything went dark. "Mosely!" she yelped in surprise.

"Grace?!" she heard from the other end of the line before it cut out.


	9. The Plan

And then, she could see again, but she definitely wasn't where she was, before. She stood up, recognizing the street beyond the alleyway. This was where they found Gabriel. He had stumbled right out of this alley. She looked down at her feet, spotting the same symbols carved into the concrete beneath her. It took her a good few seconds to put that together, and a few more to actually  _believe it._  She looked at the cellphone, then dialed again. After a few rings, Mosely picked up.

"Grace! Where are you?! I can't see you!" He sounded panicked and frightened for her.

"I'm okay!" she quickly said to calm him, and herself. "I... I think I  _teleported!_ "

"You  _what?!_ " The disbelief and shock was easily heard over the line.

"The stone! I think it's the stone. Hold on... Stand near it, but not on it, okay?" She knelt down again, tracing her finger around the markings just as she had before. And again, it all turned black.

When she saw everything again, she knew she was right. She was standing right in the field, on top of the stone. Mosely was staring at her, completely taken aback. He slowly lowered the cell phone from his ear. "W-What the hell? Did  _you_  do that?"

"The  _stone_  did." Grace picked it up, showing it to Mosely for him to examine closer. "I touched it, and it took me to where we found Gabe." She decided to take it, slipping it into her shoulder bag. "I think she's using these to move around."

"One helluva taxi." He refused to even touch it to give it a try before she stashed it. She was sure he'd had quite enough magic for his lifetime. "So that means she could be anywhere. Damnit..."

Grace turned back toward the road, starting to walk back. "But wherever she is, I think we'll find the talisman too. That talisman might be the only thing to really protect Gabriel."

"We got no idea where to even start lookin'." Mosely rubbed his jaw in thought. "Until Tulane opens up, we got nothin'. That's in - what - three er four hours? 'til then, maybe we should try and get some sleep."

"Sleep?  _Now?_ " Grace protested, though when she saw his face, she knew he was serious. This wasn't a matter of being lazy or slow, this was just practical. "... Yeah, okay... Maybe you're right."

"Just a couple winks oughta have us in good shape for tomorrow," Mosely reasoned out as they started back for his car.

***

The marina looked a lot different here than it did in the waking world. The water was pitch black, like tar, and the grass and thick were all dried and dead. He could hear the wet crunching of soil below his feet as they neared the boat. "So why exactly do you think she's here?" Margo finally asked, curious.

Gabriel went ahead of her and climbed up onto the boat, offering his hand out to help her up. She got up just fine on her own, and he began to wonder why he kept trying. "Well, seein' as she made a lotta love here, it probably feels safe."

"Of course you would know about her sexual habits." Margo passed him by and walked up to the door. It pushed open easily, as if left ajar. "Someone's been here."

Gabriel followed her in, and heard the faintest sounds of whimpering and crying from the deck below. He held his finger to his lips to keep things quiet, then slowly climbed down the ladder to the bedroom.

He hadn't seen this part of the boat in the waking world, but it seemed awfully cheery for the nightmare world they were stuck in. It was  _brighter,_  too. Things  _almost_  seemed normal. He silently looked around as Margo followed him down. Underneath the built-in writing desk, he saw a pair of feet sticking out from beneath a blanket that had been draped over it. He pointed them out to Margo. As if knowing they'd been spotted, the feet vanished under the desk and behind the blanket. The whimpers stopped abruptly, like the owner of the feet was now holding their breath.

"Celine?" Gabriel finally called out, quiet and calm as he could manage. "It's okay, girl. We're stuck here, same as you." After no answer, he felt his heart picking up again. Was it Celine? Or was it a trick? He signaled Margo to take up one side of the desk, while he approached the other. The two hunters stopped just short of the desk, and Gabriel reached down to pull the blanket up.

It was more her frightened shout that got him, and he nearly jumped back from that alone. Once he actually looked, he saw a young woman, the same from the photos in the case folder, holding her knees to her chest. She was dressed only in a white chiffon nightgown, with bare, dirty feet and hands. Her cheeks were streaked with old tears and new, and she tried to kick them both away.

"Hold on! Hold on, now!" Gabriel insisted, holding his hands out openly. "It's okay."

"Who are you?! Go away!" Celine simpered back.

Margo knelt down, catching Celine's eye. "I'm Margo Crane. This is Gabriel Knight. We're hunters. Like he said, we're trapped, just like you. We won't hurt you."

Gabriel followed her lead and knelt, himself. "Promise. Here, touch me." He held out his arm.

Celine was reluctant, but eventually took him up on it, and grabbed his arm tight to test. Solid flesh. A little warm. That seemed enough to satisfy her, and she began to ease down.

"See? Now come on out. It's better to be together," Margo said softly. They both took each of Celine's arms as she reached for them, and together they got her to her feet. "How long have you been hiding here? Why is it different?"

Celine, wiping away her tears as Gabriel took the blanket and wrapped it around her, said, "I... I don't know. When I stay still, things change around me."

"Almost like you're healing it..." Margo took note, and looked to understand. "You must be the Healer. Is that what the woman in green called you?"

"Rowena."

"Huh?" Gabriel raised a brow.

"The woman in green, her name is Rowena. I was... I was able to talk to her a little bit before the Mara took over again."

Gabriel was familiar enough with those scant details to understand. The woman he had seen was a vessel, being ridden by a demon. Now, that was a punch to the emotional gut, and it brought all sorts of memories back with it. He pushed them back. "Do you know where she is? She might be our only ticket outta here."

"She's always near her caravan. The red one. I've seen her in the real world before, too. She's a mystic. We worked together sometimes." Celine tucked the blanket around her.

Margo crossed her arms. That seemed to click in her head, like her gut knew it was correct.  "Okay, so where's the caravan?"

"I don't know... She moves it around a lot. She stays near water."

"That rules out a lot..." Gabriel huffed. "It's alright, we can look. Did she have any favorite spots?"

Celine shrugged. "I know where she sees her husband, Emelian. I can... I can take you there, but... That shadow..."

"Listen, your mom and pop are with you right now. They're watchin' over you," Gabriel explained while heading back for the ladder.

Margo seemed to purposefully look away when Gabriel spoke on that. She gently patted Celine on the shoulder as she passed. "And in here, you're with us. We'll keep you safe from that thing."

Celine, with a slightly knit brow, agreed silently with a nod, and followed them up. Once they were back on land, she noticed the cuts on the backs of their necks, and reached to touch her own. "Your talismans, she took them, right?" Margo touched her neck, having nearly forgotten about the cut, as did Gabriel. "She took mine, too. It was an oval cameo pendant with a dove flying away from an alligator."

"... A silver diamond pendant with a boar killing a vulture," Margo described her own.

With the two looking at him, he shrugged and answered, "A jeweled circle pendant with a lion fighting a snake." Now that that strange little bonding was over, he hoped they could keep moving.

Celine was more willing to follow, sticking behind close the two hunters. "The spot, it um... It's kind of a long way, on the other side of Pontchartrain. Will we make it?"

"We'd better," Gabriel answered plainly.

***

The morning light was a welcome thing as Grace cracked her eyes open. Two hours of sleep might have not been a lot, but it was better than nothing. She sat up on the couch, noticing a blanket had been put over her in her sleep. She looked across the suite, spotting Mosely, still dressed, and splayed out on the queen-size bed. Its blanket had been pulled off. She smiled faintly at his kindness. After a few moments of waking up, she grabbed her glasses from the couch-side table and put them on to clear her vision. Time to wake up Mosely.

Boy, did he have a funny sleep-face. His full cheek was pressed right up against his eye, pursing his lips into exposing a few teeth. He snored quietly. She almost felt bad, having to wake him. "Mosely, it's almost eight," she said as she walked up to the bed. She gently shook his shoulder.

He bolted up with a snort, startling her into a three-foot step back. "Hughnn?" He seemed far less startled than she did.

Grace held her chest and sighed. "Oh my god, Mosely, do you  _always_  wake up like that?"

"Like what?"

"Nevermind... It's almost eight."

Mosely looked sluggishly at the clock next to the bed, then back at her. "Oh, right... Sorry. I'll just take a sec." He got up from bed with a little wobble, then went into the suite's bathroom. The door closed, and she heard, well, the  _morning rain_.

Clearing her throat a little awkwardly, she turned to look out the window. They were lucky that the hotel the FBI had chosen for them was so close to the Tulane campus. This was the one part of town she really knew like the back of her hand. She ran her fingers through her hair to fix it up from being sleep-messed as she waited.

When Mosely left the bathroom he was looking a lot more collected, if still drowsy, with his hair freshly combed over using the water from the sink. He offered the bathroom to Grace, but she didn't need it. She could freshen up later. They needed to see the Expert  _now_.

They walked to the campus, rather than dealing with the morning traffic. The Howard-Tilton library was on the north-east end, just outside the Tulane campus proper. When they entered, they saw many students and citizens alike perusing the towering halls of books. Grace felt the best place to start was the section she had gotten to know best: Mythology and Folklore.

"You think it's somewhere around here?" Mosely questioned as he sat down tiredly at one of the study tables.

"Well, the note mentioned the password being 'Hecate', and She's a mythological figure, so..." she trailed off while looking around at the books. "There has to be something here..." She must have spent ten minutes looking around before she found the sub-section she was looking for, and when she turned to tell Mosely, she noticed he was fast asleep sitting up, his arms crossed over his belly and his head hanging forward. With a little grunt of frustration, she turned back to the section to look closer.

On the shelves she found a book labelled "THE GODDESS: HECATE".

 _Ah! Finally._  she thought as she grabbed the book to pull it off the shelf. She was confused when she felt it move almost mechanically, and lock in place, angled out of the shelf. She heard a shifting sound across the hall, and turned to look.  _You've gotta be kidding me... How did I never find **this**?_

She walked over to it, and just after cautiously stepping through, the timer on the false book seemed to run out, and it closed behind her. She was in pitch black. She spun around, pounding her hand on the door. "Mosely! Mosely, I'm stuck!" she called. No answer. There must have been some kind of insolation. Thankfully, she hadn't forgotten the flashlight the agent had given her. Flicking it on, she saw no other path, and started down the set of stairs.

At the bottom was what looked like someone's makeshift home, with antique furniture from the 1800's, and several old texts laying about. She took a few steps in before she felt something grab her from behind, and a pointed object at her throat. "Tell me who you are, and how you got here, and I shall stay my hand..."


	10. The Expert

"G-Grace! Grace Nakimura!" she answered after a gasp. "I'm here to--... To talk to the Expert!"

She felt the point move away from her neck, and the dimly lit room revealed him as he stepped around to face her. He was an old European man, looking to be somewhere in his seventies. He was dressed in old clothing, and looked overall about as dusty and worn as the furniture and books around him. He had been holding a letter opener, which he slowly set down on the end table nearest to him. "Then, my dear, you have  _found_  him."

She held her throat for a moment, then turned her flashlight off. With a relieved sigh, she said, "I need to know how to stop the Mara. My friend is in danger."

The Expert tipped his head to the side knowingly. "I know of her plan. Your friend is not nearly the only one in danger." His tone was very confident, and he sounded almost detached from the true weight of what was happening. "If the Mara escapes Her hell, we should  _all_  be in danger."

"Then... Then you'll  _help_  me."

"I do many things, girl, but help is one thing that is not so easily given." The Expert turned aboutface, casually striding across the room and to his desk. "I will not waste my time in helping you if I do not truly know you are able to do anything. You are not a hunter like your friend, the Ritter. You have no blood of killers in you."

Grace, offended, walked further into the room. "Just because I don't have freaky dreams doesn't mean I can't do something to change this. Who  _are_  you? How do you know Gabriel?"

"I do not. I know his  _scent_. I knew it when it first arrived here with the Germans and their colonies." Grace stared at him, unbelieving. "What? I do not look my age? Forgive me. This has only been my flesh and blood for fifty years."

"Okay, let me rephrase that..." Grace raised a brow steeply. " _What_  are you?"

The Expert got a wry smile on his face as he looked over his shoulder at her. "A risen demon, my dear." Grace fell quiet again, though now she looked more ready to run. "Do you not think a demon may rise as an angel may fall? It is the same process."

She remembered a German arthouse film about an Angel falling to man, but didn't think the same rules applied to  _demons_. "Are you... riding someone?" she asked, suspicious.

"No. This body is my own. It was given to me the day I rose from the pits of hell." He fixed his coat and sleeves casually. "A lesser demon is not missed amongst the legions, you see. I slipped away when I no longer wished to stay."

Grace shook her head to get her senses about her. "You know what, I don't  _care_. I need to know how to stop the Mara. She's taken six people, and  _three_  of them are dead. Gabriel is one of the three left, and  _he_  doesn't have time for this." She stood firm. "So tell me what I need to know, and you can go back to whatever Hannibal Lecter schtick you've been doing for this long."

He was quiet for a while, but when she looked at him, she could almost guess that he was interested, somehow. "Your tongue is rather loose. And in the face of a risen demon, no less. What shall you say with the test, I wonder?" 

"The  _test_...?" Grace didn't like the sound of it.

"Yes. To see if you can withstand Her might. Please, do stand still." He slipped a rolled up piece of parchment out from a bin by his desk, unrolling it over the top. "Whether you've time for it or not, I must see if you can even look upon Her without succumbing to Her wiles." Grace, albeit with stubborn reluctance, stood where she was, and waited.  "You will have to forgive my crude speech, it has ben a long time since I spoke the Nightmare's Tongue." He cleared his throat properly, then began to read. "Echt ahl toh mien." The words sank in her stomach like a cold rock. She felt nervous. "Ash tallo lo biehen." Her legs were shaking. Was she scared? How? "Norhach at ell har." She chewed her lip, breathing heavy. "Toth lo menen tich Mara nall!"

The Expert only needed to place his palm against her head, and she felt like she was plunged into ice water. The room spun, and suddenly there were no more books, no more furniture. Only darkness around her.  _A test. This is a test. Remember._  she forced herself to think in repetition. It was the only way to keep from screaming. She felt snakes wrapping around her legs, and spiders in her hair. She caught glimpses of grinning faces, and heard their laughs.

"What is you deepest fear, dear Grace?" she heard the Expert's voice echo in her ears. "Ah. I see it there. Like a pearl in a clam. You fear loss.  _Loneliness_. You fear you cannot match up to  _him_. He  _will_  leave you. They will  _all_  leave you."

"No... No!" Grace held her head and thrashed about. "Get out of there, you creep!" She grit her teeth, fighting against the sensations running up and down her body.  _This. Is. A. Test. Fight. Fight it. He's just an old man._  "He  _won't_  leave. I know him better than  _you!!_ " she spat out defiantly. With that, the darkness seeped away into the cracks and spaces between the bricks, revealing the room around her once more. She slipped down to her knees, out of breath.

The Expert looked down on her, calm and calculating. "Well, you are not driven to madness. Perhaps you've the steel to face Her." He closed his eyes and smiled wider. "The  _bitch_  who held my leash. I know Her well." He gave her his hand to help her stand up, but she did so without his help. He gave her an impressed little nod. "She has finally decided to try and wrestle dominion of this mortal land, has She? Well, all that need be done is to destroy the vessel and send Her home before the veil is torn."

"What? I don't..." Grace stepped back, having just gotten her heartbeat back to not-a-samba pacing. "I don't want to  _kill_  anyone, if that's what you're getting at. Rowena is innocent in all this." She recalled when she had thought it a convenient excuse before, when Malia had been possessed. After she learned what happened between her and Gabriel before her death, she felt a lot differently.

The Expert rolled his eyes. "Such a  _noble_  heart you have. Then you must work quick, for if She possesses the vessel completely, there will be no bringing the mortal back." Grace waited for him to explain, and he continued by saying, "The Mara has summoned six keepers of the light to her realm for sacrifice. Each to die will tear the veil separating the waking world and the nightmare world. Three have died. I have seen their faces in your head. The Cross; the priest Warren. The Seer; the palm reader Beaumont. The Bard; the young Jeb Capes. Each have fallen to their worst fears, and the Mara gave their souls to the Veil. It bows with the weight. I pray it does not bend further, but that is up to you, now."

Grace, now knowing the full weight of the situation, began to understand why Gabriel was so shaken from his dreams. Part of her briefly considered that it might have been better to stay in Germany.  _Then he'd be dead, for sure._  Making sure her shaken mind took in every word, she asked, "So what do I do?"

"Your task is but half of the true requirement. You must bind the vessel in place, and exorcise the demon from her. You may use this as a guide."

From his coat pocket, he pulled out a small, worn book, titled in Hebrew. 'גירוש שדים'. Grace knew enough to understand it said 'Exorcism'. She took it with a quick swipe when he handed it out to her, trying to keep any contact to a minimum.

"She will be left empty, and then it is left to the remaining three." He slowly paced around the room, walking around her like a preying hyena. "The Traveler, the Healer, and the Warrior all remain in the nightmare world. They must do as much as you to defeat the Mara. You must send Her back, and they must cast Her down so that this...  _Rowena_  may take her rightful,  _human_  place once more. Their talismans must be returned to them, so that they might have their full strength returned, as well. They are weak and useless as lambs without them." He stroked his chin. "I suspect she has stolen them away to wherever she hides her vessel. That would be a familiar place to Rowena, drawn like a sleepwalker to a painful memory."

"How do I find out where that is?" Grace asked.

"I do not  _know_  this girl.  _You_  are as likely to know as I." The Expert waved his hand dismissively.

Grace took in one last deep breath, filtering the information in her head. "A painful memory... Her husband is dead. Maybe where he's been buried."

"Perhaps." He turned to a lever by the bottom of the staircase, pulling it to open the door above. "Go, now. There is naught more I can do for you."

As she walked up the stairs, toward the light of the library, she felt utter relief. The looming, intimidating air of the Expert's chambers was enough to leave her feeling queasy, with or without the added bonus of pure fear she'd been treated to. She didn't look back at him. She kept walking. Once she was out into the light, the door sealed behind her. She leaned against it and let out a breathy whine, holding the book to her chest. If that was just a taste of the Mara, she had to get ready for even worse with the real thing.

"There you are!" She jumped, still rattled, then relaxed when she saw Mosely walking up to her. "Are you okay?" he asked, kneeling next to her.

She tightly smiled and nodded rapidly. "Oh yeah, just  _fine_." She brushed her hair out of her face. "I met the Expert. I know what to do." She looked down at the book she was given, knitting her brow. "I need a Hebrew-to-English dictionary. Older the better."

***

They were getting closer now, but the long walk along the lakeside still left him thinking about his first steps into being a shattenjäger. He remembered the first day he saw her face, at one of the crime scenes. Her dark, smooth skin and her fiery amber eyes. He remembered all the pain that came with her. The only thing to finally take his mind off of it was when Celine stopped, clutching her chest in fright. He turned just in time to see a large, black mass forming behind her.

"Celine! Run!" he shouted to her, but it was too late. The Shadow took form, which he assumed was her worst fear. It was a giant snake, which wrapped tightly around her to constrict. Her scream was ear-piercing.

Margo tried to step near it, but had to dodge its long tail as it swatted at her. Gabriel didn't have time to play jumprope with it like she was, he had to get to Celine through his words.

"Celine! Focus on your family!!" he instructed. "They're with you right now! They're protectin' you!!"

Celine shut her eyes tight, and before she could be crushed, she seemed to push herself free. The Shadow, again thwarted, scattered like mist into the water. Celine fell on her backside with a grunt. Margo stood still, knowing what happened. Gabriel had to come over and help Celine up, instead.

"My mama! I heard my mama!" Celine bounced, delighted and proud of herself. "You were right!"

"Haha, I told ya!" Gabriel encouraged. "You can kick that shadow's ass."

Margo walked ahead, bitterly looking out toward the water. Under her breath, she said, "Good for  _you_."

Unfortunately, that was just loud enough for Gabriel to hear. He furrowed his brow and walked up to stand next to her. "What is goin' on with you? You've been quiet since we left." When she didn't answer, he chose to answer for her. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous."

"Of what?" Margo sneered. "Getting  _lullabies_  sung in my ear? Having my  _hair_  stroked?" She said the words with venom and bite. Gabriel didn't say anything back, satisfied that she'd said it, herself. She frowned more steeply and turned away. "I don't need anyone. The only two people I've ever needed are dead, anyway."

Celine stood behind the two of them, worried and still.

"I learned quick that if you don't move on from the dead, you end up joinin' em," Gabriel said knowingly. "Don't let that chip on your shoulder screw us over."

"Don't  _tempt_  me, Knight. I could leave you two here and finish this myself." Margo crossed her arms tightly, staring daggers at him.

"Like to see you  _try_."

"Oh  _yeah?_ "

"Stop!" Celine shouted, catching their attention. "Both of you sound like right morons. I thought you said it's better to be  _together?_ " She looked to Margo, who just huffed out a frustrated sigh and let her arms hang by her sides. "We need each other. I don't know why, but I can feel it. I know you two can, as well..."

Gabriel knew she was right. He felt it deep in his gut. He sighed out his left over anger, spitting it out toward the lake rather than face Margo.

"Let's keep moving," Margo stated practically, walking further ahead.


	11. The Ritual

It took her almost two hours to parse together the antiquated Hebrew and understand the ritual and its steps. The blood of an innocent. She figured hers would do. She wasn't exactly a party-sinner like Gabriel, or anything. The binding sigil, which was thankfully drawn on the paper for her already to reference from. Then, the final part, the call of the mortal, which she understood to be similar to what Mrs. Knight used with Gabriel earlier. She would have explained it better to Mosely, but it was better to just tell him what he needed to do.

She walked into the police station, where Mosely met her halfway into the lobby. "I hope you know how hard it was to get this arranged. Pickin' that little girl up and takin' her away from her cousins was a right pain in my ass. Got at least ten curses thrown on me, I'm sure."

"Oh, stop being melodramatic. They don't curse people like that," Grace assured and walked past him. "What room is she in?"

"Here, I'll show you."

In a quiet room, away from the hectic sounds of the police department, a young girl sat at a desk, coloring some drawings in on a piece of paper. Grace carefully opened the door and walked in. Mosely stayed in the doorway. "Hello there, sweetie," she greeted with a small smile. "I'm Grace. Can you tell me your name?"

The girl gave pause before reluctantly answering. "Susanna, but you know that already."

"Smart, too," Grace chuckled, trying to keep things light. "Honey, do you know why you were brought here?"

"Agent Mostly said I needed to help you find my mommy." Grace wondered if that was a legitimate slip up, of if Susanna had somehow picked that up from Gabriel without ever meeting him. Regardless, Mosely bit his lip to keep his mouth shut. "I know she's in trouble. She hurts  _so much_."

"Why does she hurt?" Grace asked as gently as she could, sitting down next to the girl at the table. She took a moment to look at the drawing, seeing a crudely drawn lake, red caravan, and two women holding hands. One was big, and the other small. Beside them was a wooden grave marker at the foot of a tree.

"Because my daddy died, she was lonely. She found a friend, but her friend isn't nice." Susanna put down the crayon she held, pushing the drawing away slowly and sinking into herself. "She took my mommy away."

She knew a lot about this, for a child. Grace could only assume she had the same gifts her mother had, they just hadn't fully developed. "I know. This isn't going to be easy, sweetheart, but I know how to get your mommy back. Or at least save her from her mean friend."

Susanna went quiet for a bit, as if reasoning out whether or not to trust Grace. After a little bit, she said, "I know where mommy is. I can feel where she goes. She went to see my daddy at his marker." She slipped a hand up from under the table to point at the drawing. "You want me to go there, too." Grace stopped before even asking. "It's scary... Do I  _have to?_ "

"Oh, baby, I know." Grace fluffed Susanna's dark brown hair loosely. "It's scary for me, too, but it's the only way to get her back. You're stronger than her friend, I just know it." Susanna smiled just a bit at the compliment, finally agreeing wordlessly by bobbing her head. "We'll do this  _together_ , okay?"

"Okay."

Grace stood, holding out her hand for Susanna to take. She did, popping off the chair and walking next to her as the two made for the door. Mosely gave them plenty of room, then followed behind. "You  _sure_  you know what you're doin'?"

"Yes. Just be ready to run to the hospital once I get the talismans. You have the three of them right next to each other, right?" When Mosely nodded, she added the question, "How is he?"

Mosely looked away for a second, then back. "Breathin', and that's the best I could ask for, but I don't wanna keep him hangin' for long..."

"Then we'll do this quick."

***

In the distance, they could see a red caravan, and it was one they all recognized. The woman in green, Rowena, was inside there. A few feet away from the caravan they saw a wooden grave marker at the foot of a gnarled, dead willow. The ominous breeze shifted the dry branches every so often. Gabriel swallowed, cracking his neck just to relieve the mental tension. "Well... There it is. Better be ready for what's inside."

"Nowhere else to go," Margo replied, starting to walk ahead.

Gabriel chewed the inside of his lip, but followed after. Celine grabbed and held onto his hand, like it was the only thing helping her feel strong. He squeezed back. "Wonder if we're holdin' hands in the real world."

Celine smiled. "I hope someone is holding us."

They reached the door, and Margo was the first to open it. She was ready for a fight, and yet, she stood still and stared. Gabriel looked past her, seeing the woman in green, but...  _not_  her. She looked different, scared and withered. She was pale and tired, and definitely not malicious. She looked half-dead. "Who...?" her voice faintly echoed.

Margo stared in disbelief. This wasn't the Mara; not even anything close to Her. She was just another human, like them. "What's going on...?"

Celine recognized the woman far better, slipping past Margo and into the small caravan. "Rowena! You're still alive!"

"Celine? Little Celine, is that you?" Rowena held her hands out blindly, her dull eyes fogged over. "I am lost, little one. I came here for Emilian, but I cannot go back... Do not try to save me. It is too late."

"If you're here, then the Mara is out there..." Gabriel thought about that, and it made his stomach do backflips. The Mara was out  _there_ , where She could get to his Gran, Mosely, and Grace.

Celine pulled Rowena into her arms, and she hung there limply, hopelessly. "She has taken me... I am too weak to hold her back any longer... The door is closing..."

Celine shook her head, biting hard down on her lip. "Her light is fading away..."

Was this what the other side of possession looked like? He couldn't help but think back to how Malia must have suffered. "Hold on. You aren't dyin' while I'm here." Gabriel looked to Celine. "Can you heal her? Give her some of your light?"

"I... I  _think_  so, but it might take time." Celine gently brushed Rowena's dull, dried hair from her face.

Margo looked over her shoulder, behind them and to the distance. Her eyes grew wide with horror. "Then start doing it  _now!_ "

When Gabriel looked, he saw the encroaching Shadow, rolling in over the water.

***

Grace could feel the fear ebbing out from the red caravan as she approached, holding onto Susanna's hand. The day light did little to hide the darkness lurking around the abandoned lakeside field. Mosely trailed close behind, and felt the need to hold his gun in its holster just to feel safe.

"Mommy's friend is inside," Susanna said, clinging tight to Grace's hand.

"I know," Grace slowly nodded. She pulled a can of spray-paint out from her shoulder bag before setting it on the ground. She tucked it in her jacket pocket, then reached in the bag again to pull out the carved stone from before. "We'll bring her out." She gave a nod to Mosely, then began her set up. She set the stone down on the dirt, then rattled the spray paint can. She let Susanna step back a few feet, then started spraying down the markings of the sigil around the stone, itself.

Mosely went toward the caravan, drawing his gun. He repeated what Grace had told him over and over in his head, and started to murmur it aloud. "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real." He drew in a quick, deep breath, then kicked the door open and shouted, "FBI!"

The woman inside, dressed in green, spun around with a ghoulish hiss, pointing at him and saying, "Foolish!!" He was frozen with fright, every part of him tensed up to max. It took everything he had not to shoot. She stepped backward with a cackle, and onto her teleportation sigil. She traced the toe of her shoe around the circle and...

"Gotcha..." Grace said under her breath. The woman appeared before them, looking surprised and furious. She tried to lunge forward for Grace, to grab her by the neck, but found herself unable to move her feet. "Let's go,  _Mara!_ " Grace growled, pulling the book out from her pocket and opening it to the page she had written the translated words onto. "Master of all, ruler of angels and demons, I call upon thee!" She slipped a knife from her pocket and used it to cut the wrist holding the book. Wincing, she had to cut along the vein to get the most blood, and started dripping it around the circle she'd drawn.

"Oah!!! Lemah!!!" the Mara cried out into the sky. Grace knew those words. Last time they had come from Gabriel. She was glad to hear them coming from the Mara for a change.

Mosely, once he realized he wasn't actually dead, dove into the caravan, digging around desperately. "C'mon... C'mon... I know she didn't shove 'em up her ass!!" he tossed the cushions off of the built-in couch, and found a hidden compartment. He yanked the top of it off, and felt his heart skip a beat with the discovery. The talismans were there. Six of them, total. He grabbed them all by the chains and ran back out. He made a break for the street, just like Grace told him to, but the Mara turned her focus on him. His hands started shaking, and he dropped the talismans on the ground. He felt his eyes forced to look her way, and once they did, it was like the gates to his worst fears burst open, a flood rushing into his mind.

"Hey!" Grace roared protectively, taking some of her blood and smearing it across the Mara's face. "Eyes on  _me._ " Susanna hid behind Grace, clutching tight on her jacket. The Mara hissed and squealed like the blood was acid, and broke her gaze from Mosely. He fell onto his hip with a grunt, ready to vomit from fright. "Go!" he heard Grace shout. "Take the talismans to the hospital!"

"But.. But you'll  _die!_ " His fear told him that. The moment the mental flood began, he saw her dead.

"I  _won't!_  GO!!!"

He bit his lip and grabbed the talismans, gathering them in his arms before getting up and running again. The Mara might have not looked at him this time, but the fear remained -- the fear that this would be the last time he saw her.

And now that Mosely was gone, the Mara had one target to focus on. Grace felt the fear crawling up her body, just as it had with the test. She used the pain in her wrist to keep her focused. She dropped the book and dug her nails into her fresh cut to keep her grounded. "S-Susanna! Call for her!!"

***

"It's not working!" Celine sobbed, squeezing Rowena and trying her best. Gabriel could see the light she tried to push outward, to direct it into Rowena, but no matter how much she put in, it left just as fast. "It won't work in time!!"

"Keep trying!" Gabriel tried his damnedest to sound assuring as he used himself as a human barricade to the caravan, but it came out more panicked than anything.

The Shadow was getting too close now. It was ready to swallow them up. Margo ran to the grave marker, yanking it up and out of the ground. She ran back and pushed it into Gabriel's hands. "Keep her safe!"

"What are you doin'?!" Gabriel questioned, unsurely taking hold of the slab of wood.

"I'm the easiest target! It'll go after  _me!_ "

He  _knew_  what that meant for her. "You can't do this! I'm not gonna let you do this!"

Margo shook her head, eyes getting misty. "We know it's the only way, Knight. Celine can't save Rowena and fight off the shadow at the same time." She steeled herself with a breath in. "Don't worry about me. I'll be with my parents again." She started to step down from the caravan. The Shadow began to twist and curl to take shape behind her.

Gabriel could feel himself shaking with emotion.  _Not again. Not like this._  "Don't... Please  _don't._ I won't let you die!"

"I'll see you again someday. I know it." Margo nodded her head, resigned, and broke into a sprint away from the caravan. The Shadow chased after her. Gabriel felt tears going down his face as he watched the Shadow engulf her.


	12. The Fight

Mosely burst into the ICU, breathless and sweat drenched. The nurses who tried to near him were brushed off as he rushed to the three beds. He knew Gabriel's talisman, and placed it on firmly in his hand while panting. He was beginning to toss and turn, and muttering in tongues. Rebecca continued to sing Brahms' Lullaby and closed her hand over the talisman, looking to Mosely with hope that this would help, somehow. He smiled and gave her a thumbs-up, catching his breath. Stepping back, he looked over the others, his mind racing to try and fill in the blanks. Whose went  _where_? There was a large golden crucifix, which he assumed to be the priest's. He tossed it aside onto the floor. The next was an oblong gold pendant, with a jeweled hamsa in the middle. He remembered seeing hamsa earrings among Mrs. Beaumont's things. He tossed it aside. The three remaining, he had no idea about. "Shit!  _Shit!!_ "

Alarms started going off from multiple machines surrounding Margo's body, which began to shake and thrash about on the bed. He was pushed back as nurses and doctors rushed over to tend to her. As they lifted her head to put the oxygen mask on, he saw the cut on her neck. The pattern was like that of a braided chain. The idea popped into his head just as fast as his hands could move, and he jumbled the talismans around until he spotted the only one with a braided chain. "Hold on!! Let me through!  _FBI_  or somethin'!!" He shoved past one of the nurses, putting the talisman marked with a boar killing a vulture in her hand, curling her fingers around it.

***

With the circle of blood complete, Grace picked the book back up and read further, "Heed the call of the mortal!" She stepped aside to reveal Susanna, who looked upon the Mara, using her mother's body as a vessel, and screamed in fear. Grace knelt down and rubbed her shoulder. "She needs you! Call to her!" she encouraged, trying to ignore the wooziness as her blood seeped into Susanna's shirt.

***

"Margo!!! You hold on, damnit! You stay  _alive!!!_ " Gabriel screamed at the shadowy cloud, hoping against hope that it would reach her. He felt something in his free hand, and when he looked down, he saw his talisman. "... What in the..."

_"Mommy!!!"_  He heard a young girl's cry slice the air. The ground itself shook beneath their feet.

Rowena stirred, looking upward. "Susanna...?" The light within her began to grow, stretching out from Celine and flowing freely to her chest.

"Gabriel!" Celine said in awe. "She's getting her light back!"

_"Mommy, come back!!"_

"Susanna!" Rowena smiled, overjoyed, and reached up to grasp something above her. As she did, she glowed so brightly that Gabriel and Celine had to look away or be blinded. Then, what felt like an explosion sent Gabriel flying backward, and the caravan into pieces.

***

Rowena opened her eyes, now in the arms of her daughter, Susanna, bathed in sunlight. She winced as her eyes adjusted to the morning light. "Susanna! Oh, my baby!" She hugged her daughter back, who had starting crying uncontrollably. With her vision cleared, she saw Grace standing over her, holding her hand around her bloody wrist. "The... The Mara... She is with  _them_ , now!" Rowena said plaintively.

Grace just nodded. "I know. He'll get her. Don't worry." She sat down in the grass, getting dizzy. "He can do it..."  _Wow, blood tribute sucks._

***

"I can't-- I can't breathe!!" Celine's choking cries stirred him from his daze.

When Gabriel looked back, he saw the Mara in her true form. Ragged and boney, like a skeleton dressed in some thin sheet of skin, with little hair left on her head. She held Celine by the neck atop the rubble that remained of the caravan. The winds around them spun tight and fast, like the eye of a storm. "I shall kill you myself! I shall tear the veil with my own hands if I have to! I will have my way!" In her dark pits of eyes, he saw the depths of his own fears reflected back at him.

Grace was dead, bloodied and battered before his feet. Mosely was shot in the head, his skull half blown apart. His gran lay stiff and cold on the ground, having slipped and fallen. The Mara stood above them all, pointing at him and cackling maniacally. His chest suddenly felt like a void, and he couldn't take in a breath. Gabriel could see the life draining from Celine's face, going purple and puffy just as he felt his was. "You will die! You will die like Margo and Malia  _both!!_ "

***

Mosely spun around to Celine's bed, where he saw her starting to toss her head from side to side, in the throws of her nightmares. Nurses came to her aid, as well, and he heard one of them say something about her not breathing. He ran over, not even caring to announce himself this time, and lifted her head. The cut in her neck was clean and thin, like a dainty cord had held a talisman there. Thank God there were only two to guess from, and one of them had a ball chain. He took the one with the thin cord, some sort of cameo, and shoved it into her hand. "Don't let her let go of it!" he insisted as if it was an order he could enforce.

By the time he turned back to his friend, Gabriel had stopped breathing, too. How it was happening with the talisman in his hands, Mosely  _didn't know._  He saw Rebecca lean in close to speak into his ear before being separated by the nurse running in to help. He moved in to hold her, and she turned to hide her face in his jacket. She couldn't bare watching. Mosely honestly wished he could look away as he watched Gabriel's lips begin to turn blue.

***

_"Gabriel, hold on, honey!"_

Those words from his grandmother pulled him back. She was alive. He  _knew_  it. With nothing left to lose, and little air left to breathe in the suffocating whirlwind, he pocketed his talisman and scraped to his feet, grabbing the grave marker as he did so. "Let go'a her you  _bitch!!_ " He ran at a full charge toward her, thrusting the jagged edge of the marker out.

***

Nearly giving everyone around him a heart attack, Gabriel sat up straight in his bed with a rough cough. Rebecca spun around at the sound of his gasping. "Gabriel?! Gabriel! Oh, thank God!" She ran back to hold him tight in her arms as he wheezed for fresh air. She let him go to get some full breaths, stroking his cheek and letting herself weep openly. Happy tears were fine by her.

Celine took in a deep breath, her eyes springing open. Her mother quickly leaned against her in a half-hug, her father instead stroking her hand. "She's back!" he said past sniffing back tears. She looked around in a daze, but squeezed her father's hand back.

Margo fell still, a flatline tone humming from her bedside.

Gabriel heard the tone from the station next to him, and it all began to sink in. He was awake again, and she wasn't. The Mara still had her. "Margo...? Margo!" His voice escalated in franticness as he tried to get out of bed. The sheets were in tangles around his feet, so he kicked them off in a haze.

"Clear!" he heard. The monitor gave a beep, then fell to a single sustained note once again.

He clumsily yanked off the pads on his chest and ripped the IV from his arm. Hot blood ran down his wrist. Rebecca tried to stop him, but he forced himself out of the bed and to his feet, which swiftly gave out from under him. He was lucky Mosely was there to catch him by the armpits and carefully lower him to his knees.

One of the many scurrying nurses attempted reason, saying, "Sir, the deadly nightshade is still in your system." Well, that explained why the room kept spinning. "You need to lay down!" When he tried to take Gabriel's hand, he slipped free thanks to the fresh slick blood on his skin.

"Clear!" A beep, and then a sustained note. "How long now?"

"Six minutes. Resuming CPR."

He grabbed the curtain between the beds, thrusting it aside and crawling over. He saw a doctor preforming CPR on her lifeless body, and the talisman she had described sitting on the tray next to her.

"Knight, hold on!" Mosely tried to get him back, but he shoved his hands away and got to the bed. "She's  _gone_ , Knight!"

He grabbed the talisman and pushed it into her hand, squeezing it hard. "You get the fuck back here!" he sobbed out, "You come back!" He held her hand to his forehead as the nurses tried to pry him off. He couldn't lose another one.

Then...  _beep... beep... beep..._

He lifted his head, eyes wide and teary. That was  _her_  monitor. Her heart was beating again. He couldn't describe the joy that filled him, right then. As soon as he let go in the slightest, he felt one of the male nurses jab a needle into his lower back, then hoist him up and drag him back to his bed. He was fine with that. There was a big, happy grin on his face. She  _came_   _back_.


	13. The Reunion

For the first time in what had felt like a month, he slept peacefully. No sight of the nightmare world. No sign of the Mara. It might have been whatever the nurse stuck him with -- it was probably because of that, honestly -- but he felt at peace. In his dream, he saw Rowena, now golden and glowing, smiling warmly at him. She touched his cheek, pulling him forward to kiss him on the head. "Thank you, Warrior. Thank you for saving me."

"Are you really safe?" Gabriel asked softly. "She won't come back?"

Rowena exhaled gratefully. "No. She has been sealed away. I am  _free_. Please, thank Grace for me when you awake."

" _Grace?_  Where is she?"

She said nothing. She only offered him the comfort of a final embrace before parting and fading away.

_Grace..._

"Grace..." he could hear his own voice moan. His eyes, blurry and unfocused, took some effort to open, but when he did, he saw a three people standing around him. Featureless at first, barely recognizable blobs.

It helped when one of them said, "Hey, there," in quiet greeting. He focused on her, knowing the voice. His eyes finally caught up, focusing just enough to see Grace's face looking back at him. "How are you feeling?"

That was a hard question to answer, in light of everything, but his drug-addled brain cut off the filter to his mouth, and he just blurted out, "Oh, I feel  _good_..."

Mosely snort-laughed, tucking his hands into his slacks pockets. "Yeah, I  _bet_. Nurses had to give you a sedative to get you into bed again. Ya been out for a few hours." He pointed around the room generally. "Got them to move you to a private room. FBI's tab." He winked slyly. Cheap bastards at least paid for something.

"Probably a good idea, too, after you flashed your keister to half the ICU," Grace remarked second-handedly.

Gabriel closed his eyes with a grin. "Well, least they got a  _good view._ "

He rolled his head over lazily, seeing his gran knitting at his bedside. She'd gotten half a scarf done, the speedy craftress. She smiled back at him, so he assumed he was still smiling. He could barely feel his face, right now. "Hello, boo." She paused her stitches to pinch his cheek lightly.

It was then that he spotted a wrap of gauze around Grace's wrist, with some steeped stains of blood underneath. He looked at his own wrist, wrapped nearly the same. "Hey... We match." He swung his wrist up for a moment before flopping it back down.

Grace smiled and brushed her hair behind her ears. "Sure do. Remind me to take a bag of cookies with me when I plan to do a blood tribute, okay? That was  _not fun._ " She huffed and sat back in her chair. "Not to mention I had to see the psych on duty here just so I could see you. They thought I was a college student in crisis."

"You  _aren't?_ " Gabriel teased. Grace brushed it off by rolling her eyes. As the immediate euphoria took a backseat, his recent memories of the nightmare world seeped back in. With the memories came the worry for Margo. "Margo... Is she?"

"Alive," Grace finished the sentence for him. "She's probably still  _trippin'_ , just like you and Celine, but she's gonna be fine."

"Where is she? Can I see her..?"

When he started to sit up, Mosely stepped in and gently pushed him back down. "Whoa, now. You ain't movin' from this bed. She's probably sleepin' right now, anyways." With that reasoning, Gabriel sank down into his bed, staring at his feet.

"What about Rowena?" Gabriel now looked to Mosely, the FBI agent in charge of bringing in the cause of the poisonings. "Are you gonna arrest her?"

"She's off the radar. Couldn't find her if I tried." Mosely's tone gave off both the impression that he knew he wouldn't be able to find her, and that he didn't really want to. That was good enough for him.

"Well, she told me to say 'thank you'," Gabriel said while looking at Grace, directing it toward her. She took it well, smiling thoughtfully. Everything seemed fine, but part of him still worried that this might just be a trick of the nightmare world. "Am I awake...?  _Really?_ " he asked, sounding distant. He'd seen so much, it was hard to keep the mirrored images of the horrific New Orleans landscape out of his head as he stared out the window and toward the streets.

Grace leaned into his field of view. "Need me to pinch you?" When she saw the look on his face, she slipped her hand over and held his. "You're awake." She looked to Rebecca, hoping she could take the lead.

She did, planting a soft smooch on Gabriel's forehead. It noticeably relaxed him into a content sigh. "Is there anything you need?" she asked dotingly.

"Coffee?" Mosely suggested.

"... Tea," he answered after a long, thoughtful pause, "I'd like some tea."

Rebecca sat back, as if called upon personally, and patted him on the leg. "No problem at all, sweetie. I brought some lavender and chamomile just in case. I'll go brew you some." She stood with a little effort from her tired, aged knees, then headed for the door.

Grace added at the last second, "I'll um... I could use some too, if it's okay."

"Of  _course_ , dear." Rebecca nodded, waving her hand like it would swipe away any awkwardness in the air. "I'll make a full pot." She slipped out through the door and into the hallway, vanishing from sight.

"... You  _told_   _her_." Gabriel looked at Grace, somewhat stern past the drugs in his system.

Grace whipped her head back around, caught like a cat on the drapes. "Wha--? Ugh... Yes, I did. She has a right to know what you're doing  _five-thousand miles away_."

Mosely cleared his throat and looked out the window, trying not to get pulled into the argument brewing up.

"She's gonna worry about me, now."

"She was worried about you,  _anyway_." Grace crossed her arms. "Were you planning on hiding it from her, even after this?" Gabriel fell silent, turning his gaze away stubbornly. "She's proud of you, Gabe. She's put up with a lot of your shit, but I think she knows how much you've changed, now."

He closed his eyes, trying to clear his head for a proper response, something to prove his point. He could find... nothing. Exhaling slowly, he conceded, "Alright, you're right... S'pose it's better than havin' a failed horror rag author for a grandson."

"Hey, I liked them!" Mosely tried to comfort. Gabriel rolled his eyes at it. He had always known those books never fit him like they should have. Mosely knew it, too. The agent shrugged it off with a small, sheepish grin. Then again, after this, he had a lot of new material to write about. He could give it another shot once he was less occupied.

The door opened, but instead of Rebecca, Margo stood in the doorway. She was dressed in the clothes Gabriel had seen her in before, though they were clean and unstained. Over her shoulder hung a large duffle bag, filled with her things. Her hair was brushed back into a loose ponytail, and her eyes, now cast in natural light, were bright and awake. She paused there, trying to think of something to say to the two extra faces she hadn't expected to see. "Um... Am I interrupting?"

"What're you doin' outta bed?" Mosely said in surprise.

"I'm fine enough. I'm catching the first bus out of this place," Margo replied, flat and terse to the relative stranger questioning her. She looked to Grace, ignoring Mosely afterward. "You must be Grace. Gabriel talked about you."

Grace looked back at Gabriel, who was still staring, gawk-eyed, at Margo. She grew curious about just how long they must have talked in that hell-dream they were stuck in. "Um, yes." She stood to properly extend her hand out and shake Margo's. Margo accepted the hand with an almost bow of respect. "Nice to meet you, too, Ms. Crane."

"Nice to meet you for real," Gabriel said, catching Margo's eye.

Margo slipped her hand out of Grace's, nervously fixing her hair. "Do you think... Can I have a minute alone with him? Before I leave?"

Mosely seemed fine obliging her, and with what she'd heard about him sobbing over her, Grace agreed as well with a silent nod. They excused themselves without any fuss. Once the door closed behind them, it was dead silent. Margo looked at him, and he looked back at her. She swallowed, cleared her throat, and looked away. "You know, you almost look more like shit in person."

"Happens when you're high as a kite," Gabriel tried to joke, though he wasn't feeling much euphoria right now. He was feeling too many things at once. "Margo, I'm... I'm glad you came back."

"I said I'd see you again someday." Margo walked up to the bed, slumping the bag onto Grace's empty seat. "Just didn't think it'd be so, soon."

"Well, I  _did_  say I wouldn't let you die."

She pursed her lips with a restrained smile. He figured that was the biggest one he'd get for now. "Smartass." She shook her head, trying to dispel her outward grumpiness. "Thank you, Knight. When the Shadow had me, I thought I was already dead. It wasn't until I heard you that I was able to fight it." He couldn't stop a proud little smirk from showing. She noticed it and shrugged. "You saved me. I owe you."

"I'll call in a favor, sometime. I'd like to work with you."

"You're just saying that 'cause your high," she tried to dismiss. She knew it was true, though, and nodded quietly to agree to it. "I have a way to keep in contact through Germany. I knew a guy named Wolfgang Ritter. His housemaid, Gerde--"

"He was my great-uncle, you know." Margo stopped, staring at him. Now that she did, she probably saw just how much the two looked alike. "Call me anytime. The castle's open to you."

Finally, she cracked an actual smile, and it suited her face so well that it was a tragedy it didn't happen more often. "You got it." She picked her bag up again, then reached down and gave his hand a nice pat. "I'll see you around, shattenjäger."

"See ya, cazador."

As she left the room, Gabriel felt a little sad. He hoped that she would actually accept help, if she needed it. He didn't want to see her die just out of pride. That chip on her shoulder did seem a little smaller now, though. Maybe she could finally start living, rather than remembering.

For now, though, he was content enough just to see her alive. He could do with seeing that more often.


End file.
